
ftass 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



A 
SHORT HISTORY 

OF THE 

BAPTISTS 

1Wew an& WlustrateD EDMon 



By 

HENRY C. VEDDER 




Philadelphia 
American Baptist Publication Society 

1630 Chestnut Street 



PREFACE 

The first edition of this " Short History" was published 
in January, 1892. This first edition has long been out 
of print The fire of February 2, 1896, consumed all 
the stock of books on hand. The author then proposed 
that, instead of reprinting from the old plates, the 
Society thenceforth publish two editions of the work : 
one to be a small book that could be sold at a merely 
nominal price, the other a larger volume with illus- 
trations. This proposal was favorably received, and the 
first part of the project was at once realized in the 
" Phoenix edition." In the revision of the text for that 
edition a considerable amount of new matter was added. 

The second part of the project was by no means so 
easy a matter, and a decade has been required for its 
accomplishment. It required a restudy of the whole 
field covered, step by step, with utmost care. It involved 
the careful rewriting of the entire work and the addition 
of much new matter. It included months of foreign 
travel, and the collection of an immense quantity of 
illustrative material, only a small part of which has 
proved available for this edition. The book now in the 
reader's hand contains more than twice as much matter 
as the first edition, yet the volume is not too big nor 
the story too prolix, it is believed, to justify the retention 
of the original title of "A Short History of the Baptists." 

The book has thus grown to what the author hopes 
will prove, so far as the text is concerned, its definitive 

vii 



Vlll PREFACE 

form. But he still cherishes a hope that, at some future 
time, his ideas regarding its illustration may be more 
completely realized. No sane publishers would, how- 
ever, incur the necessary expense of such illustration 
unless fully assured of support in so doing. Our Publi- 
cation Society has gone to the present limit of prudence 
in this matter. If the Baptists of America would like an 
edition of this history, with all of the interesting and 
valuable portraits, ancient edifices, facsimiles of docu- 
ments, and other curious and instructive illustrative 
matter in the author's possession or at his command, 
they have only to make that wish unmistakably known 
and they can have it. The unmistakable evidence of 
their desire (need it be added ?) will be a sale of this 
present edition commensurate with the favor that has 
been shown to its predecessors. 

The author gladly takes this opportunity of expressing 
his obligations to the friends who have given assistance 
in his work, especially to those who, by pointing out its 
imperfections, have made possible its betterment. A 
host of good Christian people, by no means confined to 
our own denomination, have sent words of commen- 
dation, of counsel, of helpful suggestion. To such, one 
and all, thanks have been returned in the one convincing 
way : by leaving nothing undone to make the book 
worthy of their appreciation. 

Special thanks are due to Messrs. G. P. Putnam's 
Sons for their supplying five duplicate plates from their 
"Heroes of the Reformation" series, and to the Ameri- 
can Baptist Home Mission Society for the loan of the 
beautiful half-tone portrait of John M. Peck. 

Ckozek Theological Seminaky, February, 1907. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE vii 

INTRODUCTION 3 

PART I 
HISTORY OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 

Chapter I. The New Testament Churches — History. . 13 
The Great Commission. The ingathering at Pentecost. 
Conversion of Saul. The gospel preached to Gentiles. 
Antioch and the beginning of Christian missions. The 
empire evangelized. 

Chapter II. The New Testament Churches — Con- 
stitution 24 

Founded on believers' baptism. Baptism of infants 
unknown. Ordinances and officers. Worship. 

Chapter III. Christianity and the Cesars 35 

Christians and the Roman law. Martyrdom of Perpetua 
and Felicitas. Toleration granted. Attacks of heathen 
philosophers. The Christian apologists. Defeat in victory. 

Chapter IV. The Holy Catholic Church 44 

Signs of degeneracy. Exaggerated ideas about unity. 
Sacramental grace. Clinic baptism. Baptism of infants. 
The catechumenate. Sacerdotalism. Growth of the 
episcopate. Asceticism. 

Chapter V. The Struggle for a Pure Church ... 57 
Montanism. Novatians. Donatists. Arianism. 
Athanasius and the triumph of orthodoxy. 

Chapter VI. The Eclipse of Evangelical Christianity . 71 
Patrick and the gospel in Ireland. Evangelical 
Christianity in the East. The Bogomils. 

Chapter VII. Foregleams of the Dawn 80 

Arnold of Brescia. Savonarola. Wiclif. Hus. 
The Moravians. 

ix 



X CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter VIII. The Wrath of the Dragon 95 

Origin of persecution. Its theory. Effect of the 
medieval heresies. The fourth Lateran Council. The 
Albigensian crusade. Rise of the Inquisition. Its 
Methods. The lesson. 

Chapter IX. The Old Evangelical Party no 

Protestants before Protestantism. The Petrobrusians. 
Henry of Lausanne. Waldo and the Waldensians. 
Waldensian teachings. 

Chapter X. Grebel and the Anabaptists 129 

Their origin. Zwingli and the beginning of reform in 
Zurich. Anabaptism introduced. Persecution of the 
leaders. Zwingli' s responsibility. Anabaptists in Bern. 
The Schleitheim Confession. 

Chapter XI. Anabaptism in Germany 145 

Unhistorical treatment of the party. The Zwickau 
"prophets." Balthasar Hubmaier. John Denck. Their 
views of civil government. Persecution by all govern- 
ments. 

Chapter XII. The Outbreak of Fanaticism . . . .167 
Condition of German peasants. Decay of feudalism 
and the social revolution. Thomas Miinzer and the 
peasant uprising. Luther' s tracts against the peasants. 
Hofmann and his teachings. The Miinster uproar. 
Savage persecution of the Anabaptists. 

Chapter XIII. Menno Simons and his Followers . . 184 
Menno's life and labors. Toleration in the Nether- 
lands. Baptism among the Mennonites. Their contro- 
versies and divisions. Mennonites in England. Their 
martyrs : Joan Boucher, Hendrik Terwoort, Edward 
Wightman. 



PART II 
A HISTORY OF BAPTIST CHURCHES 

Chapter XIV. The Early Days 201 

John Smyth and his church at Amsterdam. His 
baptism. Church removes to London. Growth of 
General Baptists. Spurious claims of antiquity. Origin 



CONTENTS XI 

PAGE 

of Particular Baptists. Introduction of immersion in 

1641. Survival of affusion till 1653. Controversy with 

Separatists. Confession of 1644. William Kiffen. 
Hanserd Knollys. 

Chapter XV. The Struggle for Liberty 219 

The Long Parliament and civil war. Presbyterian 
intolerance. Baptists during the Protectorate. Opposed 
to monarchy. Fifth Monarchy movement. The Resto- 
ration. General Thomas Harrison. John James. Act 
of Uniformity and persecutions. John Bunyan. Bap- 
tists under James II. Act of Toleration. Baptist 
customs of the seventeenth century. 

Chapter XVI. The Second Reformation and its 

Consequences 237 

The next fifty years. Confession of 1688. Decline 
of General Baptists. First Associations. Hyper- 
calvinism. John Gill. General declension of religion. 
John Wesley and his work. Results on Church of 
England. Dan Taylor. Andrew Fuller. William 
Carey and the missionary revival. 

Chapter XVII. The Nineteenth Century 256 

Growth of churches. New missionary organizations. 
Bible Translation Society. Robert Hall. Charles 
Haddon Spurgeon. Open communion in England. 
Education. Six-principle Baptists. Seventh-day Baptists. 

Chapter XVIII. Baptists in the Greater Britain . . 269 
Baptists in Wales : John Myles, Vavasor Powell. 
Recent history. Baptists in Scotland : Archibald Mc- 
Lean, the Haldanes. Baptists in Ireland : Alexander 
Carson. Baptists in Canada. Baptists in Australasia. 

Chapter XIX. Baptists in the Colonies 287 

Three periods of American Baptist history. Roger 
Williams and the first Baptist church. John Clarke and 
the Newport church. Henry Dunster. Whipping of 
Obadiah Holmes. First church in Boston. William 
Screven and the Charlestown church. Beginnings in the 
Middle States. The Philadelphia Association. Baptist 
churches in the South. 

Chapter XX. The Period of Expansion 308 

Worldliness invades. The Great Awakening. Heze- 
kiah Smith. The Revolution. Morgan Edwards, 



Xll CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Progress of the churches. Religious liberty attained. 
The Westward movement. The pioneer preacher. John 
M. Peck and the Home Mission Society. The Judsons 
and their work. Luther Rice and the Triennial 
Convention. 

Chapter XXI. The Days of Controversy 335 

Unitarianism in New England. The American Bible 
Society and the controversy about versions. Formation 
of the American Bible Union. A long controversy. 
The Saratoga Convention. The anti-Masonic excite- 
ment. Alexander Campbell and the Disciples. The 
anti-slavery controversy and the division of Baptists. 

Chapter XXII. Evangelism and Education 350 

Periods of revivals. State and local work. Develop- 
ment of educational institutions. James Manning and 
Brown University. Newton Theological Institution. 
The institutions at Hamilton. Other colleges and 
seminaries. The American Baptist Publication Society. 

Chapter XXIII. The Last Fifty Years 362 

Baptist churches in 1850. Numerical growth of fifty 
years. Progress in education. Growth of foreign 
missions. Increase of home missions. Work of the 
Publication Society. Comparative denominational 
wealth. Counter currents. 

Chapter XXIV. Baptists in the United States — 

Irregular Baptist Bodies 384 

Six-principle Baptists. Original Freewill Baptists. 
Free Baptists. Separate Baptists. United Baptists. 
General Baptists. Primitive Baptists. Two-seed-in- 
the-Spirit Baptists. Baptist Church of Christ. Seventh- 
day Baptists. Winebrennerians. River Brethren. 
Adventists. Christadelphians. Christian Connection. 
Social Brethren. 

Chapter XXV. Baptists in Other Countries .... 394 
France. Germany. Sweden. Norway. Denmark. 
Russia. Greece. Spain. Italy. 

Chapter XXVI. Progress of Baptist Principles . .410 
The nature of the church. The baptismal controversy 
ended. The communion question. Separation of Church 
and State. Theological changes. The guarantee of the 
future. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Perpetua Frontispiece 

From a Mosaic in the Archbishop' s Palace, Ravenna. 

The Mamertine Prison, Rome 14 

Where Paul and Peter (according to tradition) were 
imprisoned. 

The Three Fountains 22 

The traditional scene of Paul' s martyrdom. 

Nero 28 

From a photograph of the bust in the Capitoline Museum, 
Rome. 

Trajan 36 

From the same source. 

Marcus Aurelius 42 

From the same source. 

The Baptistery of St. John Lateran 52 v 

From a photograph of the interior, showing the ancient 
pool. 

The Baptistery at Pisa . . 64 

From a photograph of the interior, showing the raised 
font. 

The Old Cathedral at Brescia 74 

From a photograph of the exterior ; the interior is 
now an ecclesiastical museum. 

Statue of Arnold . . 82 "" 

Erected by the municipality at Brescia. 

xiii 



XIV ILLUSTRATIONS 

t>AGfi 

Savonarola 88 ^ 

From a photograph of the portrait by his disciple, Fra 
Bartolommeo. 

Savonarola's Execution 90 y 

From an old picture that now hangs in Savonarola s cell. 

Savonarola 94 J 

From the Luther Monument at Worms. 

WlCLIF IOO 

From the same. 

The Martyrdom of Hus 108 ^ 

A contemporary picture. 

The Hus Memorial at Constance 116 



Hus 120 y 

From the Luther Monument at Worms. 

Waldo 124 

From the same. 

HULDREICH ZWINGLI I30 J 

The most authentic portrait of the Swiss reformer. 1 

The Old Council Hall of Zurich 136 < 

(Here the disputations took place.) From an old print. 1 

Zurich and the Limat 142 

(Here the Anabaptists were drowned.) From a photo- 
graph. l 

Balthasar Hubmaier 150 

From an old print. 1 

NlKOLSBURG IN 1678 l6o 

From an old print. 1 

1 By courtesy of the publishers, G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



ILLUSTRATIONS XV 

PAGE 

A Group of Radical Leaders . 1 70 

From engravings in an old history of Anabaptists. 

Munster — The Church of St. Lambert 180 

From a photograph (the cages may be seen upon the 
tower). 

Menno Simons 186 

From an engraving prefixed to his works. 

William of Orange 194 

From a portrait in the museum at Cassel, Germany. 

William Kiffen 206 

From a contemporary engraving. 

Hanserd Knollys 216 

From a portrait prefixed to his "Parable of the 
Kingdom. ' ' 

Oliver Cromwell 222 

From the portrait by Sir Peter Lely, now in the Pitti 
Palace, Florence. 

General Thomas Harrison 228 

From "Thomas Harrison, Regicide and Major-General, " 
by C. H. Simkinson. 

John Bunyan 234 

From a drawing by Robert White in the British Museum. 

John Gill 240 

From the engraving prefixed to his "Body of Divinity." 

Andrew Fuller 248 

From the portrait prefixed to his collected works. 

The Birthplace of William Carey 250 

From an old wood engraving. 



XVI ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The Kettering House where the English Baptist Mis- 
sionary Society was Organized in 1792 , . . .252 

Robert Hall 260 

From the engraving prefixed to his Works. 

Charles Haddon Spurgeon 266 

From a photograph taken in middle age. 

The Myles Memorial 298 

From a photograph. 

The First Baptist Meeting-house in Boston 300 

From an old print. 

John M. Peck 322 

From a portrait in oil now at Shurtleff College. 1 

Adoniram Judson , 336 

The best extant likeness. 

Spencer H. Cone 346 

From the engraving prefixed to his biography by his sons. 

James Manning 354 

From the engraving prefixed to Guild' s biography. 

The Haystack Monument 374 

From a photograph. 

1 By courtesy of the " American Baptist Home Mission Monthly." 



INTRODUCTION 



INTRODUCTION 

The word Baptists, as the descriptive name of a body 
of Christians, was first used in English literature, so far 
as is now known, in the year 1644. The name was not 
chosen by themselves, but was applied to them by their 
opponents. In the first Confession of Faith issued by 
the Particular Baptists in 1644, the churches that pub- 
lished the document described themselves " as commonly 
(but unjustly) called Anabaptists." While they repudi- 
ated the name Anabaptist, they did not for some time 
claim the new name of Baptists, seeming to prefer "Bap- 
tized believers," or, as in the Assembly's Confession of 
1654, "Christians baptized upon profession of their 
faith." These names were, however, too cumbrous, and 
they finally fell in with the growing popular usage. The 
name Baptists seems to have been first publicly used by 
one of the body in 1654, when Mr. William Britten pub- 
lished "The Moderate Baptist." The first official use of 
the name is in " The Baptist Catechism " issued by the 
authority of the Assembly. The surviving copies of this 
document are undated, and we only know that it was 
prepared and printed " some years " after the Assembly's 
Confession. 

For the fact that the name Baptist comes into use at 
this time and in this way, but one satisfactory expla- 
nation has been proposed: it was at this time that Eng- 
lish churches first held, practised, and avowed those prin- 
ciples ever since associated with that name. There had 
been no such churches before, and hence there was no 
need of the name. The name Anabaptist had been well 
known, and it described not unfairly from the point of 

3 



4 INTRODUCTION 

view of those who invented it, the principles and prac- 
tices of a body that, under various names, had existed 
from the eleventh century. The Anabaptists denied the 
scripturalness of infant baptism, and insisted on a bap- 
tism upon profession of faith. But the Anabaptists, for 
the most part, were content to practise the rite of bap- 
tism as they saw it in vogue about them; that is to say, 
sprinkling or pouring. They gave little attention to the 
act of baptism, regarding the subjects of baptism as a 
matter of far greater importance, as indeed it is. The 
English Anabaptists seem, at the beginning of their his- 
tory, to have differed not at all from the other branches 
of the party in this respect ; but about the year 1640 the 
attention of some among them was called to the question 
of the fitting act of baptism according to the Scriptures, 
and the introduction of immersion soon after followed. 
The name Baptists came to be applied to them almost 
at once as descriptive of their new practice. 

The history of Baptist churches cannot be carried, by 
the scientific method, farther back than the year 161 1, 
when the first Anabaptist church consisting wholly of 
Englishmen was founded in Amsterdam by John Smyth, 
the Se-Baptist. This was not, strictly speaking, a Bap- 
tist church, but it was the direct progenitor of churches 
in England that a few years later became Baptist, and 
therefore the history begins there. There were before 
this time, it is true, here and there churches that might 
fairly be described as Baptist. Such was the church at 
Augsburg about 1525, commonly called Anabaptist, but 
practising the immersion of believers on profession of 
faith ; such were some of the Swiss Anabaptist churches, 
apparently; such were some of the Anabaptist churches 
of Poland. But we find such churches only here and 
there, with no ascertainable connection existing between 
them. Further research may establish such connection. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

or may bring to light additional instances; but it must 
be confessed that there is no great probability of such 
result. At any rate, there are no materials for a history 
in such facts as are now known. A history of Bap- 
tist churches going farther back than the early years of 
the seventeenth century would, therefore, in the pres- 
ent state of knowledge, be in the highest degree un- 
scientific. The very attempt to write such a history now 
would be a confession of crass ignorance, either of the 
facts as known, or of the methods of historical research 
and the principles of historical criticism, or of both. 

" Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my 
church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against 
it." Such was the reply of our Lord when his ever-confi- 
dent disciple answered the question, " Who say ye that 
I am?" in the memorable words, then for the first time 
uttered, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
God." The Church of Rome points to this text as con- 
clusive proof of her claims to be God's vicegerent on 
earth, the true church, against which the gates of hades 
shall not prevail. It further points to its unbroken suc- 
cession, and a history which, if dim and uncertain 
at the first, since the fourth century at least has 
not a break, and not improbably extends back to the 
apostolic era, if not to Peter himself. It challenges any 
of the bodies that dispute its claim to show an equal an- 
tiquity and a succession from the days of the apostles 
as little open to serious question. Those that accept this 
test and fail to meet it must confess themselves schis- 
matics and heretics, resisters of God, and doomed to 
overthrow here as well as condemnation hereafter. 

Many Protestants make haste to accept Rome's chal- 
lenge to battle on her chosen ground. Certain Angli- 
can divines have great faith in a pleasing tradition that 
the Church of England was founded by the Apostle Paul 



O INTRODUCTION 

during a third missionary tour hinted at in the New 
Testament but not described; and they flatter themselves 
that they thus establish an antiquity not second to that 
of Rome. Some Baptists have been betrayed into a 
similar search for proofs of antiquity, misled by the idea 
that such proof is necessitated by the promise that " the 
gates of hades shall not prevail " against the true church. 
If then, they reason, Baptist churches are true apostolic 
churches, they must have existed from the days of the 
apostles until now without break of historic continuity. 
This exaggerated notion of the worth of antiquity as a 
note of the true church is strengthened by the theory of 
baptism held by some; namely, that no one is bap- 
tized unless he is immersed by one who has himself 
been immersed. This is to substitute for the apostolic 
succession of "orders," which the Roman Church boasts, 
an apostolic succession of baptism. The theory compels 
its advocates to trace a visible succession of Baptist 
churches from the days of the apostles to our own, or 
to confess that proof is lacking of the valid baptism of 
any living man. 

But it is plain that in thus accepting the challenge of 
Rome Protestants in general, the Baptists in particular, 
commit as great an error in tactics as in exegesis. To 
assume the necessity of an outward continuity in the life 
of the church is gratuitously to read into the words of 
our Lord what he carefully refrained from saying. 
Rome, for her own purposes, assumes the only possible 
import of the words to be that Christ's church will have 
a historic continuity that can be proved by documentary 
and other evidence. But this is by no means the nec- 
essary meaning of Christ's promise. The church that 
he said he would build on the rock, to which he guar- 
anteed victory against the gates of hades itself, is not 
a visible body — that is the great falsehood of Rome — 



INTRODUCTION 7 

but the assembly of those in all the ages who truly love 
God and keep the commandments of Christ. Of these 
there has been an unbroken line, and here is the true 
apostolic succession — there is no other. Through the 
continuous presence of this church and not along any 
chain of visible churches, the truth has descended to our 
days. Christ's promise would not be broken though at 
some period of history we should find his visible churches 
apparently overcome by Satan, and suppressed; though 
no trace of them should be left in literature; though 
no organized bodies of Christians holding the faith in 
apostolic simplicity could be found anywhere in the 
world. The truth would still be, as he had promised, 
witnessed somewhere, somehow, by somebody. The 
church does not cease to be because it is driven into the 
wilderness. 

To Baptists, indeed, of all people, the question of 
tracing their history to remote antiquity should appear 
nothing more than an interesting study. Our theory of 
the church as deduced from the Scriptures requires no 
outward and visible succession from the apostles. If 
every church of Christ were to-day to become apostate, 
it would be possible and right for any true believers to 
organize to-morrow another church on the apostolic 
model of faith and practice, and that church would have 
the only apostolic succession worth having — a succession 
of faith in the Lord Christ and obedience to him. Bap- 
tists have not the slightest interest therefore in wrest- 
ing the facts of history from their true significance; 
our reliance is on the New Testament, and not on an- 
tiquity ; on present conformance to Christ's teachings, not 
on an ecclesiastical pedigree, for the validity of our 
church organization, our ordinances, and our ministry. 

By some who have failed to grasp this principle, there 
has been a distressful effort to show a succession of 



8 INTRODUCTION 

Baptist churches from the apostolic age until now. It 
is certain, as impartial historians and critics allow, that 
the early churches, including the first century after 
the New Testament period, were organized as Baptist 
churches are now organized and professed the faith that 
Baptist churches now profess. It is also beyond ques- 
tion that for fully four centuries before the Reforma- 
tion there were bodies of Christians under various names, 
who professed nearly — sometimes identically — the faith 
and practice of modern Baptists. But a period of a 
thousand years intervenes, in which the only visible 
church of unbroken continuity was the Roman Church, 
which had far departed from the early faith. 

The attempt has been made, at one time or another, 
to identify as Baptists nearly every sect that separated 
from the Roman Church. It will not suffice to prove that 
most of these sects held certain doctrines from which 
the great body of Christians had departed — doctrines that 
Baptists now hold, and that are believed by them to 
be clearly taught in the New Testament — or that the 
so-called heretics were often more pure in doctrine and 
practice than the body that assumed to be the only or- 
thodox and Catholic Church. This is quite different 
from proving the substantial identity of these sects with 
modern Baptists. Just as, for example, it is easily shown 
that Methodists and Presbyterians hold a more biblical 
theology and approach nearer to apostolic practice than 
the Roman or Greek churches; while yet all know that 
a considerable interval separates them from Baptists. It 
is one thing to prove that the various heretical sects bore 
testimony, now one, now another, to this or that truth 
held by a modern denomination ; and quite another thing 
to identify all or any of these sects with any one modern 
body. This is equally true, whether the investigation be 
confined to polity or to the substance of doctrine. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

In thus emphasizing the divergences of the early and 
medieval sects from the teaching of the Bible, as Bap- 
tists have always understood that teaching, no denial is 
implied of the excellent Christian character manifested 
by the adherents of these erroneous views. In many in- 
stances the purest life of an age is to be found, not in 
the bosom of the Catholic Church, but among these de- 
spised and persecuted sectaries. Not one of them failed 
to hold and emphasize some vital truth that was either 
rejected or practically passed by in the church that 
called itself orthodox. God did not leave his truth with- 
out witnesses at any time. Now a sect, now an indi- 
vidual believer, like Arnold of Brescia or Savonarola, 
boldly proclaimed some precious teaching, perhaps along 
with what we must regard as pernicious error. But it 
is impossible to show that any one person, or any one 
sect, for a period of more than a thousand years, con- 
sistently and continuously held the entire body of truth 
that Baptists believe the Scriptures to teach, or even all 
its vital parts. It is possible that with further research 
such proof may be brought to light: one cannot affirm 
that there was not a continuity in the outward and vis- 
ible life of the churches founded by the apostles down 
to the time of the Reformation. To affirm such a neg- 
ative would be foolish, and such an affirmation, from 
the nature of the case, could not be proved. What one 
may say, with some confidence, is that in the present 
state of knowledge no such continuity can be shown by 
evidence that will bear the usual historic tests. Indeed, 
the more carefully one examines such literature of the 
early and medieval church as relates to the various 
heretical sects, the stronger becomes his conviction that 
it is a hopeless task to trace the history of the apostolic 
churches by means of an unbroken outward succession. 
A succession of the true faith may indeed be traced, in 



IO INTRODUCTION 

faint lines at times, but never entirely disappearing; but 
a succession of churches, substantially like those of our 
own faith and order in doctrine and polity — that is a 
will-o'-the-wisp, likely to lead the student into a morass 
of errors, a quagmire of unscholarly perversions of fact. 
The special feature of this history is that it attempts 
frankly to recognize facts, instead of trying to maintain 
a thesis or minister to denominational vanity. Begin- 
ning with a survey of the history and constitution of the 
New Testament churches, in which all Baptists profess 
to recognize the norm of doctrine and polity, the process 
by which these churches were perverted into the Holy 
Catholic Church of the succeeding centuries is quite fully 
traced. The story of the gradual suppression of evan- 
gelical Christianity having thus been told, the next step 
is to show the reverse process — the gradual renascence 
of evangelical Christianity. This is the sum of Part I., 
the history of Baptist principles. The second Part is de- 
voted to the history of actual visible Baptist churches, 
and every statement of fact made is carefully based on 
documentary sources. For the important question is, not 
how much may be guessed or surmised or hoped about 
our history as Baptists, but how much may be known. 



PART I 
HISTORY OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 



CHAPTER I 

THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — HISTORY 

" (~^~ O ye therefore, and make disciples of all the 
VJT nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you ; 
and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world." In this parting injunction of the risen Lord to 
his disciples, which the Duke of Wellington aptly called 
the marching orders of the ministry, we have the office 
of the Christian Church for the first time defined. In 
obedience to this command the early Christians preached 
the gospel, founded churches, and taught obedience to 
Christ as the fundamental principle of the Christian life. 
And though many of them could say with Paul that they 
spent their days "in labor and travail, in watchings often, 
in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and naked- 
ness," they found it a faithful saying that their Lord 
was with them alway. In so far as the church in all 
ages has been obedient to Christ's command it has 
experienced the truth of this promise. 

It is significant that in his teaching Jesus mentioned 
the church but twice, and then only toward the close of 
his ministry. The distinctive feature of his teaching is 
the setting up among men of the kingdom of God — a 
kingdom not of this world, but spiritual, into which he 
only can enter who has been born from above, who 
is meek, childlike, spiritually minded. Being spiritual, 
this kingdom is invisible, but it has an outward, bodily 
manifestation, an institutional as well as an incorporeal 

13 



14 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

existence. That manifestation is the church, the eccle- 
sia, those "called out" from the world and gathered into 
a society whose aim is the extension of the kingdom. 

This church potentially existed from the day when two 
disciples of John the Baptist followed Jesus and be- 
lieved on him as the Messiah (John i : 35-40) ; but of 
actual existence as an organized society of believers dur- 
ing the life of Jesus no trace appears in the four Gospels. 
The day of Pentecost marks the beginning of the defi- 
nite, organic life of the followers of Christ. The descent 
of the Holy Spirit, according to the promise of the Lord, 
was the preparation for the great missionary advance, 
of which the conversion of three thousand on that one 
day was the first fruits. Not only did this multitude hear 
the word and believe, but on the same day they were 
"added to the church," which can only mean that they 
were baptized. It was once urged, as an objection to 
the teaching and practice of Baptists regarding baptism, 
that the immersion of so many people on a single day is 
physically impossible. The missionary history of our 
own time has silenced this objection forever, by giving 
us a nearly parallel case. In 1879, at Ongole, India, 
two thousand two hundred and twenty-two Telugu con- 
verts were baptized on a single day by six ministers, two 
administering the ordinance at a time ; the services being 
conducted with all due solemnity, and occupying in all 
•nine hours. 

The baptism of this great multitude on the day of 
Pentecost was not only their public confession of faith in 
Jesus as the Messiah, and their formal induction into 
the company of believers, but the beginning of a new 
life of Christian fellowship. For a time at least, this fel- 
lowship took among the saints at Jerusalem the form of 
virtual community of goods, and this so-called "Chris- 
tian communism" is often held up as a model for the 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — HISTORY 1 5 

life of Christians in all ages. "And the multitude of 
them that believed," says the record, "were of one heart 
and soul; and not one of them said that aught of the 
things which he possessed was his own; but they had 
all things in common. . . For neither was there 
among them any that lacked, for as many as were pos- 
sessed of lands or houses sold them, and brought the 
price of the things that were sold, and laid them at the 
apostles' feet; and distribution was made unto each ac- 
cording as any one had need." It is evident to one who 
reads the entire account that this was a purely voluntary 
act on the part of the richer believers, prompted by a de- 
sire to relieve those whom the peculiar emergency had 
made specially needy. The optional nature of the sales 
and gifts is evident from the words of Peter to Ananias, 
who with Sapphira conspired to lie to the Holy Spirit — 
"Whiles it [the property Ananias had sold] remained, did 
it not remain thine own? And after it was sold, was it 
not in thy power?" To sell all one's goods and distribute 
unto the poor, though proposed by Jesus to the rich young 
ruler as a test of his desire for eternal life, was not a 
general condition of discipleship, even at this time and 
place. But there is no reason to suppose that after the 
temporary stress had been relieved, this community of 
goods continued among even the Jerusalem brethren, 
while there is every reason to believe that no other church 
in the apostolic age practised anything of the kind. There 
is entire silence on the subject in the Epistles and the 
remainder of the Acts — a thing inconceivable if Chris- 
tian communism had been a fundamental principle of 
the apostolic churches. It is not wise or fair to draw a 
sweeping conclusion as to present duty from premises so 
narrow and uncertain. 

The saints at Jerusalem had all been born and bred 
as Jews, and they had no idea that by becoming fol- 



l6 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

lowers of Christ they had ceased to be Jews. They were 
daily in the temple, and scrupulously fulfilled all the 
duties prescribed by the law of Moses. Nor did the 
Jewish authorities regard them as adherents of a dif- 
ferent religion; they were rather a sect or party among 
the Jews than a separate body. This is not to say that 
they were approved by the priests and the Sanhedrin; 
on the contrary, very soon persecution of them began. 
The Sadducees were the first to proceed against them, on 
the avowed ground that the apostles "proclaimed in Jesus 
the resurrection of the dead." The result of this persecu- 
tion was a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit and a 
new advance; a multitude of believers were added, until 
the number of men alone became five thousand. The 
Sadducees had the experience of persecutors in all ages, 
that " heresy " is like a firebrand, and he who attempts 
to stamp out either by violence only scatters the sparks, 
until the little fire becomes a great conflagration. 

About four years after Pentecost a fresh persecution 
was begun. The stoning of Stephen was its first act, 
and this was followed by a systematic and determined 
effort to extirpate this new heresy. This time it was the 
Pharisees who led the persecution, and prominent among 
them was Saul of Tarsus. The disciples at Jerusalem 
were dispersed, but they became preachers of the gospel 
wherever they went. They had come to Jerusalem from 
distant places, and had tarried there; now they would 
naturally return to their homes and carry with them 
their glad tidings of salvation through Jesus, the Christ. 
Thus a persecution that at first seemed likely to be fatal 
to the church at Jerusalem really ensured the perpetuity 
of Christ's religion by scattering its adherents throughout 
Asia Minor. 

Shortly after this occurred an event, improbable, in- 
credible even, if it were not certain, fraught with con- 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — HISTORY Vf 

sequences most profound and far-reaching to Christi- 
anity, nothing less than the sudden conversion of its 
bitterest opponent. Saul, brought up at the feet of Gama- 
liel and learned in the law, renowned for his zeal in per- 
secuting the church of God — in which, like so many other 
persecutors since, he verily believed he was doing God 
a service — was stricken down and blinded on his way to 
harry the saints at Damascus, by the appearance in the 
heavens at midday of the Christ whom he persecuted. 
Three days later, with sight miraculously restored, he 
was baptized into the fellowship of Christ's followers, 
and soon was as zealous in preaching the truth about the 
Messiah to the Jews as he had formerly been in oppos- 
ing those who held it. Persecuted by the Jews, dis- 
trusted by the Christians, he had to pass through a long 
and painful ordeal before he became fitted for the work 
to which God had separated him from birth. Three 
years were spent in seclusion in Arabia, and several other 
years in obscure labors, before his fitness for a larger 
service was recognized by his brethren. 

In the meantime, Philip, one of the deacons of the 
church at Jerusalem, seems for a time to have stepped 
into the place made vacant by the death of Stephen. He 
preached the gospel in Samaria, and wrought miracles; 
many believed and were baptized, both men and women. 
None of these converts, so far as appears, was a Gentile ; 
and the eunuch shortly afterward baptized by Philip was 
doubtless a Jewish proselyte. Slow of heart, indeed, 
were the followers of Christ to admit that any but a 
Jew could be saved through Christ. They still regarded 
themselves as Jews; the gospel was a gospel for Jews; 
salvation was for Jews. 

The first recorded case of preaching the gospel to 
a Gentile is that of the centurion, Cornelius, of Csesarea, 
When Peter had gone to him in obedience to a vision; 

B 



iB A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

when he had preached Christ to him and his friends 
and they all believed; when the Holy Spirit fell upon 
them, so that they spoke with tongues and glorified God ; 
the apostle felt that he had but one course, and he un- 
hesitatingly baptized them. " Who was I that I could 
hinder God," he said, in recounting the affair to the 
church at Jerusalem on his return ; and they, though they 
had at first doubted and criticised, were in turn convinced 
that this was the work of God, and glorified him, saying : 
" So then, to the Gentiles also God has given repentance 
unto life." The conversion of Cornelius therefore marks 
an era in the history of Christianity, since it was never 
after questioned that the gospel was to be preached to 
Gentile as well as to Jew; the religion of Christ was 
not to be a mere Jewish cult, but one of the great 
missionary religions of the world — the greatest of 
them all. 

This characteristic alone discriminates Christianity 
from the Judaism whence it sprung. Judaism was essen- 
tially narrow, exclusive, non-missionary; not in the pur- 
pose of God, but as the religion was actually held and 
practised. It was God's plan, indeed, that in Abraham 
and his seed all the nations of the earth should be 
blessed, but the Jews never took kindly to that idea. 
The fundamental notion in their minds was separation 
from the nations; God had chosen them from all others 
and made them his peculiar people. Power and do- 
minion were to be given them, according to the prom- 
ises of prophets, a kingdom more glorious than Sol- 
omon's ; and that others should share in these privi- 
leges was a thought as bitter as wormwood to a Jew. 
Though the Jews made proselytes of individuals from 
time to time, the number of those thus added to them 
was relatively insignificant, and of any general attempt 
to convert the world to Judaism there is no trace in the 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — HISTORY 19 

Jewish literature of any age. If all the world were 
Jews, where would be the special privilege and glory of 
the Jew? But Christianity is nothing if not missionary. 
It exists because its Founder said to his followers, " Go, 
disciple," and it exists for no other purpose than this. 
From the day of Pentecost until the day of Christ's 
second coming, the history of Christianity has been — will 
be — a history of missionary advance. 

But when the world-wide scope of the gospel was ad- 
mitted, there was still much question as to the status 
of Gentiles when they had been converted and bap- 
tized. The old notion that the Christian was also a Jew 
was slow in giving way, and with great diligence the 
task was continued of sewing the new patch of Chris- 
tianity on the old, worn-out garment of Judaism, not- 
withstanding Jesus had declared it to be impossible and 
foolish. Still in bondage to the law of Moses, many 
were unwilling that others should enjoy the liberty where- 
with Christ has made men free. They demanded that 
every Gentile convert should become not only a Christian, 
but a Jew, and insisted that he should be circumcised 
and become a debtor to the whole law. But there were 
men like Paul, who, though bred as Jews, when they 
had become converts to Christianity, comprehended its 
significance. He, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, glorying 
in his servitude to the law and his scrupulous observance 
of all its requirements, strove long and violently against 
the new faith and its adherents. But when he was en- 
lightened by the Spirit of God, there fell, as it were, 
scales from his eyes; thenceforth he discerned clearly 
that Christianity differed profoundly from Judaism, in 
that it was a religion of the spirit, not of the flesh. He 
saw that in Christ the whole law had been fulfilled, and 
that the believer in him is delivered from its bondage; 
that a religion of types and external rites was now an 



20 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

anachronism, and must soon die out among those who 
accepted Jesus as the Messiah. Therefore, to bind the 
Gentile converts with this moribund law, to require spirit- 
ual believers to live after fleshly ordinances, was not only 
ridiculous and unjust, but was in fact to nullify the 
preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. 

The crisis in this " irrepressible conflict " was reached 
at Antioch about fourteen years after Pentecost. Paul 
had preached for some years in Asia Minor, especially 
at his native city of Tarsus, and at the invitation of 
Barnabas he went to Antioch to take part in a prom- 
ising work there. For a year they preached and taught, 
and there the disciples were first called Christians. At 
the instance of the Holy Spirit, Barnabas and Saul were 
set apart for a special work of preaching in the regions 
beyond, and the second great step forward was taken 
in the history of Christianity. They made a tour of Asia 
Minor, and the island of Cyprus, in which they prob- 
ably spent two years, and on their return to Antioch 
again abode there a long time. It was at this juncture 
that certain men from Judea endeavored to persuade the 
Antioch church that unless Gentiles were circumcised 
after the custom of Moses, they could not be saved. No 
little dissension followed, and it was finally decided that 
" Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should 
go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this 
question." The proceedings and decision of this " coun- 
cil " at Jerusalem are given fully in the fifteenth chapter 
of the Acts of the Apostles. The meeting was the Get- 
tysburg of the Judaizing party; the Gentiles were not 
required to be circumcised and to live as Jews; and 
although the struggle continued for some time, and 
once again at Antioch became violent, these were only 
the expiring throes of error. From this time onward 
Christianity assumed a distinct character, and was no 






THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — HISTORY 21 

longer confounded with Judaism. The settlement of this 
question not only determined for that age the character 
of Christ's religion, but prepared the churches for a 
larger advance in missionary effort. 

The details of the evangelization of the Roman empire 
are only imperfectly known to us, though the fact of 
such evangelization is amply attested by the New Testa- 
ment documents, as well as by uniform Christian tra- 
dition. We have a fairly complete account of the labors 
of Paul, especially up to his imprisonment at Rome, clos- 
ing about the year a. d. 63. Three missionary journeys 
of his are described with considerable fulness of detail. 
The first has already been mentioned; in its course the 
gospel was preached in Salamis and Paphos, at Antioch 
of Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, perhaps in other 
places. Not less than three years must be allotted to 
the second journey, during which the apostle preached 
in Galatia, at Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and 
Corinth, staying in the last-named city a year and a 
half. The third journey occupied about four years, of 
which over two were spent at Ephesus, and the rest in 
Galatia and Phrygia, Greece (probably at Corinth), and 
Troas. The story of these twelve years of Paul's life 
is practically all that we know in any detail of the apos- 
tolic labors through the Roman empire. For the rest 
we must depend on vague hints and uncertain traditions. 
It appears probable, however, that after a. d. 63 Paul 
was acquitted and released, and labored four or five years 
more, visiting Crete and Macedonia, Troas and Miletus, 
and perhaps also Spain, before his final arrest, imprison- 
ment, and martyrdom. This conclusion best explains 
many passages in the so-called pastoral Epistles that are 
otherwise puzzling, not to say inexplicable. 

Regarding the labors of the other apostles, our in- 
formation is even more scanty and less trustworthy. 



22 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Had John Mark performed for Barnabas and Peter the 
service that Luke rendered to Paul; had' some disciple of 
John made a record of his labors, our knowledge of the 
apostolic era would have been vastly increased. We 
know that the First Epistle of Peter was written from 
Babylon and addressed to the Christians of five Asiatic 
provinces; from this it is perhaps a fair inference that 
Peter had previously preached in those provinces. That 
he was ever in Rome does not appear from the New 
Testament, but tradition is well-nigh unanimous that he 
suffered martyrdom there. That he was bishop of the 
Roman church for twenty-five years, according to Roman 
claims, is a later and manifestly absurd invention. There 
is no reason to doubt the tradition that John lived to an 
advanced age and died at Ephesus. The fourth Gospel 
shows traces of Alexandrine thought that makes probable 
a period of residence in the greatest of the Eastern cities 
of the empire. All that we definitely know of him is 
that for a time he was in banishment on the Isle of 
Patmos; whether he had any personal connection with 
the seven churches that he addresses in the Revelation 
can only be conjectured. 

Some few scattered traditions embody the beliefs that 
were prevalent in the third century regarding the labors 
of the other apostles. Andrew is said to have preached 
in Scythia, Bartholomew in India, Thomas to have evan- 
gelized Parthia, and Mark to have founded the church 
at Alexandria. It is impossible to decide whether tales 
like these are lingering echoes of the truth or the mere in- 
ventions of a later time. Even regarding them as in- 
ventions, however, they have this significance : they testify 
to a general belief in the third century that the labors of 
all the apostles were abounding and fruitful. There is 
no doubt that the new leaven spread with a rapidity truly 
wonderful throughout the Roman empire. In the earli- 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — HISTORY 2$ 

est records of Christian literature in the second century 
we find Christians literally everywhere. The well-known 
letter of Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, written about 
a. d. in, says that this "superstition" pervades not 
only the cities of his province (Pontus and Bithynia), 
but villages and even farms, so that the temples were 
almost deserted, the sacred rites intermitted, and fodder 
was no longer purchased for the animals to be sacrificed, 
at which the farmers complained bitterly. Heathen and 
Christian writers alike bear witness to the rapid spread 
of Christianity throughout the empire. To account for 
this phenomenon something more is necessary than what 
we are told in the New Testament records ; there is a 
large amount of unwritten history of the apostolic period, 
that must forever remain unwritten, but whose general 
outlines we can vaguely see. It has been estimated, 
though this must necessarily be pure guesswork, that 
when John, the last of the apostles, passed away, near 
the close of the first century, the number of Christians 
in the Roman empire could not have been less than one 
hundred thousand. In so brief a time the grain of 
mustard seed had become a tree. 



CHAPTER II 

THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — CONSTITUTION 

" r I ^HE church of the living God, the pillar and 
A ground of the truth," writes the Apostle Paul to 
Timothy, his beloved son in the faith. Though in the 
Gospels we find little about the church, as has already 
been noted, in the other New Testament writings we 
find much. The word ecclesia (assembly, church) is used 
in these documents one hundred and fourteen times, and 
in three different senses as applied to Christians : once to 
denote the assembly of the saints in heaven (Heb. 12: 
23) ; often to describe the one assembly of the saints, 
the church universal, composed of all followers of Christ ; 
but in the great majority of cases (eighty-five) to denote 
a local assembly or congregation of the followers of 
Christ. The church universal is not regarded in the 
Epistles as a visible and organized body, but is wholly 
spiritual, incorporeal, corresponding essentially to the 
idea of the kingdom of God taught in the Gospels. The 
only visible and organized body of Christians recognized 
by the New Testament writers was the local assembly or 
congregation. In other words, the apostles knew nothing 
of a Church ; they knew only churches. 

These churches, though visible and organized, were 
also spiritual. They were the outward embodiment of the 
kingdom of God among men, and the means by which 
that kingdom was to be extended. But the kingdom of 
God is before all things spiritual. " Except a man be 
born anew (anothcn, from above) he cannot see the king- 
dom of God," said our Lord to Nicodemus. And again 
24 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — CONSTITUTION 2$ 

he states the truth yet more emphatically, this time with 
a reference to baptism, the symbol of the new birth: 
" Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born 
of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the king- 
dom of God" (John 3 : 1-21). This new birth, the work 
of the Holy Spirit, is conjoined to " faith," " belief " in 
Christ on the part of man, and as its result man is justi- 
fied in the sight of God ( 1 Peter 1 : 5, 9 ; Rom. 5:1; 
Gal. 2: 20; Heb. 10: 38; 11 : 6). The necessity of a new 
birth through faith in Christ is everywhere assumed in 
the Epistles as a truth too familiar to be formally stated. 
It is the postulate, without which the apostolic writings 
cannot possibly be understood. 

Hence the New Testament churches consisted only of 
those who were believed to be regenerated by the Spirit 
of God, and had been baptized on a personal confession 
of faith in Christ. What was done on the day of Pente- 
cost seems to have been the rule throughout the apostolic 
period: the baptism of the convert immediately followed 
his conversion. It is a distinct departure from New 
Testament precedent to require converts to postpone their 
baptism. It is true, that these converts were Jews, that 
they only needed to be convinced that Jesus was the 
promised Messiah, and to submit to him as Lord, to make 
them fit subjects for baptism; as it is also true that, 
with the prospect of persecution and even death before 
them, there was no temptation to make a false profession. 
This made possible and prudent a haste that in our day 
might be dangerous; but the principle should be recog- 
nized and admitted, as taught by all New Testament 
precedent, that no more time should separate baptism 
from conversion than is necessary to ensure credible 
evidence of a genuine change of heart. 

That all those added to the church at Jerusalem on the 
day of Pentecost were capable of making, and did make, 



26 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

intelligent personal confession of faith, is as certain as 
words can make anything. Nor is there the slightest in- 
dication in the New Testament writings that, during the 
apostolic age, any were received into the church save 
those who had come to years of personal responsibility 
and understanding. No scholar pretends that the bap- 
tism of infants is taught in the Scriptures ; they are abso- 
lutely silent on the subject; yet from this silence certain 
inferences have been made. It is sometimes assumed 
that a continuity of life unites the Old Dispensation and 
the New. As children were by birth heirs of the prom- 
ise through Abraham, so they are assumed to be by birth 
heirs of promise through Christ. In this view the New 
Dispensation is organically one with the Old; baptism 
merely replaces circumcision, the church replaces the 
synagogue and temple, the ministry replaces the priest- 
hood, while the spirit of all continues unchanged. It 
appears to Baptists, on the other hand, to be clearly 
taught in Scripture that the New Dispensation, though 
a fulfilling and completion of the Old, is radically differ- 
ent from it. Under the Old Dispensation a child was an 
heir of promise according to the flesh, but under the 
New Dispensation natural birth does not make him a 
member of the kingdom of God ; he must be born from 
above, born of the Spirit. The church has for its founda- 
tion principle a personal relation of each soul to Christ, 
and not a bond of blood; a child might be born a Jew, 
but he must be born again to become a Christian. 

The more this silence of the Scriptures regarding the 
baptism of infants is considered, the more significant it 
becomes. Jesus took little children in his arms and de- 
clared that of the childlike is the kingdom of God (Matt. 
19: 14), but he nowhere authorized baptism save when 
preceded by faith. The cases where whole households 
were baptized do not fairly warrant the inference that 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — CONSTITUTION 2J 

they contained infants, as is now frankly admitted by all 
scholars. Either they afford no positive ground for in- 
ference of any kind (as in the case of Stephanas, I Cor. i : 
16; 16: 15), or they absolutely forbid the inference that 
infants were among the baptized (as in the case of the 
jailer at Philippi, where all who were baptized first had 
the gospel preached to them, Acts 16 : 32, 33). The case 
of Lydia and her household is often cited as one that 
proves infant baptism, but it is impossible to infer from 
the narrative (Acts 16 : 14, 15), anything certain, or 
even probable, regarding Lydia's family. Whether she 
was ever married, or whether she ever had children, or 
whether her children were not all dead or grown up 
are matters of pure conjecture. It is possible to guess 
any of these things, and a dozen besides, but guesses 
are not fair inferences, still less proofs. 

Those who believe in a mixed church-membership, in- 
cluding unregenerate and regenerate, often cite the par- 
able of the Tares (Matt. 13 : 24-30). The field, they say, 
represents the church, and as the tares and wheat were 
to be suffered to grow together till the harvest, so the 
regenerate and unregenerate are to be intermingled in the 
church. It is a decisive objection to this plausible theory 
that our Lord himself interpreted this parable to his dis- 
ciples (Matt. 13: 36-43), and declared that the field rep- 
resents, not the church, but the world; the tares being 
separated from the wheat in the final judgment of 
mankind. 

If the church " consists of all those throughout the 
world that profess the true religion, together with their 
children," as the Westminster Confession declares, does 
it not necessarily follow that children are equally entitled 
with their parents to all the privileges of the church? If 
they are fit subjects for baptism, they are fit subjects for 
the Lord's Supper. Whoso denies this certainly assumes 



28 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the burden of proving the reasonableness of his position. 
There is nowhere in Scripture any authority to give the 
former ordinance, and to withhold the latter. The Greek 
Church recognizes the fact that infant baptism logically 
requires infant communion, and has the courage of its 
logic ; but other Pedobaptist bodies save part of the truth, 
at the expense of consistency, by denying participation in 
the Lord's Supper to those baptized in infancy until these 
have reached years of understanding, and have made a 
public profession of faith. 

The church at Jerusalem, composed of believers bap- 
tized on profession of personal faith in Jesus Christ, 
" continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fel- 
lowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers." 
There is no record in the New Testament that any joined 
in the breaking of bread, which is the usual term for the 
celebration of the Lord's Supper, without first having 
been baptized. What is stigmatized, therefore, as 
" close " communion is simply strict adherence to scrip- 
tural order — an order that bodies forth the spiritual sig- 
nificance of the two ordinances delivered to his church by 
Christ: baptism, as the emblem of the new birth, fol- 
lowing immediately upon that birth, and being admin- 
istered but once ; the Lord's Supper, the emblem of union 
with Christ, and spiritual partaking of his nature, coming 
later and being often repeated. In coming to the table of 
the Lord, who shall venture to add or to take from the 
terms prescribed by himself and by apostolic example? 
Precisely because the table is the Lord's, and not theirs, 
his obedient followers are constrained to yield to his will. 

Such was the first Christian church, as to constitution 
and ordinances ; and such, in these particulars, the 
churches of Christ continued to be to the close of the 
apostolic era. There were no other ordinances in those 
churches, for to constitute an ordinance three things are 







Page 28 



The Emperor Nero 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — CONSTITUTION 20, 

needful: it must be a command of Christ himself; ad- 
dressed not to individuals, but to Christians at large, and 
obviously intended to be obeyed for all time; and there 
must be evidence that the command was so understood 
and obeyed generally in the apostolic churches. Only 
baptism and the communion meet these conditions. The 
laying on of hands after baptism, and in ordination, is 
supported by Scripture precedent, but it is not an ordi- 
nance, for it was not commanded by Christ. Washing 
the feet of disciples is a command of Christ, but lacks 
the element of universality, and was evidently not prac- 
tised as a rite in the apostolic churches. On the other 
hand, the commands to baptize and to break bread are 
accompanied by words indicating that these things were 
to be observed perpetually by the followers of Christ. 

Of organization there was at first none in the church 
at Jerusalem. The apostles naturally took the lead and 
oversight of the flock, and for a time the need of officers 
was not felt. The first step was the appointment of dea- 
cons, in order to relieve the apostles from the labor and 
responsibility of distributing alms. These officers were 
chosen by the entire church, which is thus seen to be 
a democracy from the first, and set apart to their work 
by prayer and laying on of hands — an apostolic precedent 
that Baptists have not always been careful to follow. 
The appointment of pastors to have oversight of the 
churches, as their numbers increased, was the next step, 
so that the apostles might be free to give themselves to 
their specific work of evangelization. 

We first learn definitely of this office some fourteen 
years later, when Barnabas and Paul were returning to 
Antioch from their first missionary journey, visiting the 
churches they had founded: We read, "And when they 
[Barnabas and Paul] had appointed for them elders in 
every church, and had prayed with fasting, they com- 



30 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

mended them to the Lord, on whom they had believed. " 
The word translated " appoint " is conceded by all schol- 
ars to signify " to stretch forth the hand," probably for 
the purpose of voting. This is held to indicate that the 
congregations chose each its own pastor, the apostles set- 
ting apart the chosen ones with prayer, and, as is implied 
in other passages, with the laying on of hands. With 
the election of pastors, the organization of the church 
became complete, and in the New Testament there is no 
evidence of any further ecclesiastical machinery. 

The chief officer of a New Testament church is called 
by various titles, "bishop," " elder," " teacher," " pastor." 
The latter two seem to describe functions rather than an 
office, and the former two are interchangeable but not 
synonymous. " Bishop " (episcopus) is a term of Greek 
origin, and means overseer, president. It indicates the 
duties of the office, which were executive. " Elder " 
(presbuteros) is of Hebrew origin, and refers to the 
honor paid this officer, as in the Jewish synagogue, an 
honor that was doubtless originally due to the selection of 
the older and wiser members for the office. It is admitted 
by all scholars that in the apostolic times " bishop " and 
" elder " were the same ; but some advocates of episco- 
pacy hold the later bishops to have been the successors 
of the apostles. Of this, however, there is no evidence, 
either in the writings of the apostles themselves or in the 
literature of the second century. 

Not only was the New Testament bishop chosen by his 
flock, and the officer of the single congregation, but he is 
regarded as one of them and one with them. No idea of 
a division into " clergy " and " laity " appears in the New 
Testament. No priestly character or function is as- 
cribed to either bishop or deacon, but the universal 
priesthood of believers is unmistakably taught. Sacer- 
dotal ideas are not found in the generation immediately 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — CONSTITUTION 3 1 

succeeding the apostles, but are distinctly of a later 
development, and are unmistakable marks of the 
degeneracy and corruption of the churches. 

In the churches of Asia Minor, if not generally in the 
New Testament churches, there was a plurality of elders 
in each church. This may have been due to the fact that 
the churches of which we read most were in cities, and 
soon became too large for the oversight of one man. It 
is possible that in some cases, as at Jerusalem, they be- 
came too large to assemble in any one place, and met 
in separate congregations, each with its own elder. If 
this conjecture is sound, it still remains unquestionable 
that the several congregations were regarded as one, the 
division being merely for convenience ; for while we read 
of " the churches " of a province like Galatia, we always 
read of " the church " at Corinth or Ephesus or Antioch 
or Jerusalem. 

Simple in organization and democratic in government, 
the New Testament churches were independent of each 
other in their internal affairs. There is no instance of 
a single church, or of any body of churches, undertaking 
to control the action of another, or of a church being 
overruled by superior ecclesiastical authority. To the 
teaching of apostles guided by the Spirit of God, they 
did, indeed, defer much, and rightly; but not so much 
to the apostolic office as to the Spirit of God speaking 
through the apostle. The so-called council of Jerusalem, 
the nearest approach to the control of local churches by 
exterior authority (presbytery), had an authority rather 
moral than ecclesiastical, and its decision was final rather 
because it was felt to be the wisest solution of a grave 
question than because it was imposed by ecclesiastical 
powers and enforced by ecclesiastical discipline. 

But though independent of external authority, the 
churches were not independent of external obligations. 



32 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The church, in the broadest sense of the term, in the 
New Testament, includes all the regenerate living in 
obedience to Christ. Hence, though for convenience of 
administration divided into local congregations, independ- 
ent of each other as to internal management, it is still the 
one body of Christ. The several churches owed to their 
fellow-Christians, both as individuals and as Christians, 
whatever of loving service it was in their power to render. 
They were bound to give counsel and help to sister 
churches that had need of either, and frequent records 
in the New Testament show that this obligation has been 
acknowledged and fulfilled. The interdependence and 
fraternity of the churches is a broader and more precious 
truth than their independence. If the former, when 
abused, leads to centralization and prelacy, the latter, 
pushed to extremes, leads to disintegration, discord, and 
weakness. The apostles urged upon churches as well as 
upon individuals the duty of bearing one another's bur- 
dens, comforting each other in trouble, assisting each 
other in need, and generally co-operating to further the 
interests of the kingdom of God. 

The worship of the early Christians was simple and 
spiritual. The public services consisted of prayer, praise, 
and the preaching of the word, probably with reading of 
the Old Testament writings, and of the New Testament 
writings as they appeared and were circulated through 
copies. In these respects the first churches, as was nat- 
ural, no doubt followed the custom of the Jewish syna- 
gogues, to which their members had been accustomed 
from infancy. Music filled an important place in this wor- 
ship, as we may infer from the apostle's reference to the 
" psalms and hymns and spiritual songs " as in common 
use. The chanting of psalms, antiphonal and otherwise, 
was no doubt a marked feature of Christian worship 
from the first, especially among those educated as Jews. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCHES — CONSTITUTION 33 

Traces of ritual are found in the New Testament, not 
only in the Lord's Prayer and the doxologies, but in 
rhythmical passages in the apostolic writings. But this 
ritual was simple, plastic, voluntary; not a rigid and re- 
quired service. Nothing is more marked in the spiritual 
life of the early church, so far as it is disclosed in the 
Acts and Epistles, than its spontaneity and freedom from 
the bondage of formalism. This is, of course, more 
markedly manifest in the informal gatherings, closely re- 
sembling the modern prayer-meeting, that supplemented 
the more public and general assemblies of the Lord's Day. 
These, however, like the agapce, or love feasts, that for a 
time accompanied the celebration of the Supper, were 
liable to abuse, and against disorderly proceedings in them 
we find the Apostle Paul warning the Corinthian church. 
The distinctive day of worship among apostolic Chris- 
tians was the first day of the week, the Lord's Day. The 
disciples met on the evening of this day, on which the 
risen Christ had manifested himself to some of them, and 
he met with them. A week later they again assembled, 
and again he met them. There is no reason to doubt that 
the observance continued thereafter without a break. 
Thus, while there is no definite precept for the observ- 
ance of the Lord's Day, there is definite precedent, and 
the example of the apostles, where it is clear and ex- 
plicit, is tantamount to command. By the year a. d. 55 
this first-day meeting of Christians seems to have become 
a recognized custom (Acts 20 : 751 Cor. 16 : 2) ; yet it 
is not until the second century that we have positive proof 
that the Lord's Day was universally observed among 
Christians. For some time those who had been bred 
Jews continued to observe the Sabbath in their usual man- 
ner, and the matter even became a subject of contention 
between Jew and Gentile (Rom. 16 : 5, 6; Col. 2 : 16) ; 
but in the second century sabbatizing was condemned by 
c 



34 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Christian writers. Neither in the New Testament nor 
in the Christian literature of the first three centuries is 
there any confounding of the Sabbath and the Lord's 
Day, or any intimation that the fourth commandment has 
anything to do with the observance of the Lord's Day. 
On the contrary, the Sabbath is treated as typical and 
temporary, like circumcision, and done away with as 
were all the ordinances of the law. 

There were doubtless other times of meeting in the 
apostolic churches, besides the first day of the week. For 
a brief time after the day of Pentecost, every day appears 
to have been a day of worship, as it even now is with 
churches during a season of special revival ; and the 
Lord's Supper was at this time celebrated daily. At a 
later period it was celebrated, apparently, every Lord's 
Day, though there is nothing to indicate that this was re- 
garded as obligatory. Any Baptist church, however, that 
should choose to spread the table of the Lord every 
Lord's Day would have sufficient Scripture precedent to 
justify it in so doing. The one thing for which no New 
Testament precedent can be pleaded is the letting of 
months go by without a celebration of the Communion. 



CHAPTER III 

CHRISTIANITY AND THE CAESARS 

BEFORE the end of the apostolic age the followers 
of Christ suffered severe persecution at the hands 
of t'he Roman emperors. The first great persecution, 
that of Nero, probably had no other origin than the 
capricious cruelty of that infamous ruler. The perse- 
cutions of his immediate successors were prompted by 
passion rather than by principle; it is not till the reign 
of Trajan that we find persecution for the first time 
adopted intelligently and deliberately as a fixed imperial 
policy. This emperor, in his letter to Pliny, governor of 
Bithynia from 109 to ill, directed that Christians should 
not be sought out nor proceeded against on anonymous 
accusations; but when accused by a responsible person 
they should be tried, and on conviction should be put to 
death. 

To understand these persecutions by the better of the 
Roman emperors — and, as a rule, the higher an em- 
peror's character the more severely he persecuted the 
Christians — we must look at the Roman laws. Religion 
was from the earliest times a matter of statecraft in 
Rome. There was a State religion, and public wor- 
ship of the State deities was conducted by the magis- 
trates. The worship of foreign gods was prohibited on 
pain of death by the Twelve Tables, the earliest code of 
laws among the Romans, and for a time this prohibition 
seems to have been absolute; but as other nations were 
conquered and absorbed a liberal policy was shown 
toward the religions of the conquered peoples. By act 

35 



36 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of the Senate these national deities were given recog- 
nition; temples in their honor could be established in 
Rome, and their devotees had equal rights with Ro- 
mans, but were forbidden to make proselytes. Until a 
religion was thus formally recognized, it was forbidden 
(religio illicit a), but on such recognition it became a 
tolerated religion (religio licita). Christianity was at 
first supposed to be a form of Judaism, which as a na- 
tional religion was tolerated and even protected by the 
emperors ; and accordingly it was at first treated as 
religio licita. Soon, however, its real nature came to be 
known. It was found to be exclusive of all other re- 
ligions; it not only made proselytes, but by its rapid 
progress it threatened the overthrow of the State religion. 
It was, therefore, religio illicita, and to embrace it was 
a capital offense. 

Moreover, Christians were suspected of disloyalty. 
They avoided military service. Their conscientious re- 
fusal to offer divine honors to the emperor — which was 
done by throwing a little incense on the fire burning be- 
fore his statue, to the Roman an act like the taking of 
the oath of allegiance among us — was misconstrued into 
political hostility. There were severe laws in the em- 
pire against clubs, secret societies and the like; no as- 
sociation was lawful unless specially licensed, and the 
emperors were so jealous of these clubs, as affording 
opportunities for conspiracy, that Trajan actually refused 
to sanction a company of firemen in Nicomedia. The 
Christian church was constructively an illegal secret so- 
ciety, since it was an organization not sanctioned by the 
emperor, that held frequent private meetings; and in 
order to protect themselves, the Christians held these 
meetings with great secrecy. 

It was not mere wanton cruelty, therefore, that led 
the emperors to persecute the Christians, but a fixed 




Page 36 



The Emperor Trajan 



CHRISTIANITY AND THE CESARS 37 

State policy. But nevertheless, popular hatred at times 
waxed hot against the Christians, and emperors occa- 
sionally persecuted to gratify this hatred, based on ignor- 
ance and slander. Public opinion is not without influ- 
ence, even in a despotic government. A saying that 
passed into a proverb was : Deus non pluit — due ad Chris- 
tianos (the heavens do not rain — lead us against the 
Christians). Tertullian probably exaggerates little when 
he says : " If the Tiber overflow its banks, if the Nile 
do not water the fields, if the clouds refuse rain, if the 
earth shake, if famine or storms prevail, the cry always 
is, ' Throw the Christians to the lions ! ' " 

Ten persecutions are mentioned by the Christians of 
this period and by many historians, of which three are 
specially remarkable for bitterness and general prevalence 
through the empire. In the second century persecution 
was spasmodic and unmethodical, nevertheless the reign 
of Marcus Aurelius is remembered as one of great suf- 
fering by the Christians. It is not certain that he or- 
dered persecutions or sympathized with them, but thou- 
sands became martyrs. The first general and systematic 
persecution throughout the empire was that begun by 
Decius Trajan (249-251)'. The authorities were espe- 
cially severe with the bishops, and Fabian of Rome, 
Alexander of Jerusalem, and Cyprian of Carthage, are 
some of those who perished in this persecution. Dio- 
cletian began the last great persecution, which raged dur- 
ing the years 303-311. His edicts required that all 
Christian churches should be destroyed ; all copies of the 
Bible were to be burned; Christians were to be deprived 
of public office and civil rights, and must sacrifice to 
the gods on pain of death. 

The Christian literature of the first three centuries 
records the heroic death of many devout believers, but 
no story is more touching than the martyrdom of Per- 



38 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

petua and her companion Felicitas, as told by Tertullian. 
Vivia Perpetua was a matron of Carthage, about twenty- 
two years of age, and had an infant son. She was well- 
born and well-educated. Of her husband the narrative 
tells us nothing, but we may infer that he was, like her 
father, a heathen. After being apprehended, her father 
and brother used all their arts of persuasion to induce 
her to recant, but in vain. When brought before the 
procurator, he besought her thus : " Spare the gray hairs 
of your father, spare the infancy of your boy, offer sac- 
rifice for the well-being of the emperor." She replied: 
" I will not do so." The procurator said : "Are you a 
Christian ? " She replied : " I am a Christian." The 
procurator then delivered judgment on the accused, Per- 
petua among them, and condemned them to the wild 
beasts. The story of the martyrdom, somewhat abridged, 
follows in Tertullian's words : 

" The day of tneir victory shone forth, and they pro- 
ceeded from the prison into the amphitheater, as if to 
an assembly, joyous and of brilliant countenances. For 
the young women the devil prepared a very fierce cow. 
Perpetua is first led in. She was tossed and fell on her 
loins ; and when she saw her tunic torn she drew it over 
her as a veil, rather mindful of her modesty than her 
suffering. So she rose up ; and when she saw Felicitas 
crushed, she approached and gave her her hand, and 
lifted her up; and the brutality of the populace being 
appeased, they were recalled to the gate. And when 
the populace called for them into the midst, they first 
kissed one another, that they might consummate their 
martyrdom with a kiss of peace. The rest indeed im- 
movable and in silence received the sword-thrust; but 
Perpetua, being pierced between the ribs, cried out loudly, 
and she herself placed the wavering right hand of the 
youthful gladiator to her throat. Possibly such a woman 



CHRISTIANITY AND THE CLESARS 39 

could not have been slain unless she herself had willed 
it, because she was feared by the impure spirit. O most 
brave and blessed martyrs ! O truly called and chosen 
unto the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ ! " 

Early in the fourth century it became apparent that 
Christianity was stronger than the Caesars, and could 
not be destroyed. The long contest ended with the sur- 
render of the emperors. In 311, an edict of toleration 
was published, confirmed in 313, and with the triumph 
of Constantine in 323 as sole emperor, Christianity be- 
came practically the established religion of the empire. 
In spite of the persecutions to which they had been 
subjected, the Christians had come to number, accord- 
ing to the most trustworthy estimates, about ten millions 
in the Roman empire; or one-tenth of the entire popu- 
lation. It was no empty boast of a rhetorician when 
Tertullian wrote, a century before toleration was won: 
" We are a people of yesterday, and yet we have filled 
every place belonging to you — cities, islands, castles, 
towns, assemblies, your very camp, your tribes, com- 
panies, palace, senate, forum ! We leave you your 
temples only. We count your armies ; our numbers in a 
single province will be greater." 

While the Christian faith was thus engaged in a life- 
and-death contest with the imperial power, it was com- 
pelled to defend itself against the hardly less dangerous 
attacks of heathen adversaries. The emperors threat- 
ened with destruction the external organization; heathen 
philosophers threatened to undermine the very founda- 
tions of the faith. Pagan men of letters undertook to 
bring to pass what imperial power had failed to do. The 
terrors of the prison and the sword had proved of little 
avail to hinder the progress of Christianity; the question 
was now to be tested whether the pen could cut deeper 
than the sword, whether logic and rhetoric could over- 



40 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

come an obstinacy proof against death itself. The at- 
tacks made upon the religion of Christ in the first three 
centuries have never been surpassed in ability and force. 
No keener-witted, no more learned, no more bitterly hos- 
tile critics have searched the Scriptures with intent to 
overthrow them than were found in these days. We 
are authorized in saying this, though their works are 
known to us only through the references made to them 
by their Christian antagonists. Not only is this the gen- 
eral repute of these critics, but the profuse quotations 
from their words in the answers to them show the scope 
and cogency of their arguments. Nearly all the latter- 
day skeptical objections to Christianity are to be found 
in these early anti-Christian writings. The new light that 
modern opponents of evangelical religion profess to have 
discovered is only the old darkness. 

There were then, as now, two stock objections to the 
religion of Christ — first, the incredibility of the Scrip- 
tures as history; second, the absurdity of the doctrines 
taught in the Scriptures. Then, as now, skeptics objected 
to the miraculous element in the Bible, and sought to 
overthrow men's belief in the book as inspired by point- 
ing out its alleged contradictions. Then, as now, men 
could not reconcile their human systems of philosophy 
with the biblical teaching regarding the inherent sinful- 
ness of man, the vicarious atonement, regeneration, 
union with Christ, sanctification, and a resurrection unto 
eternal life. But it was paganism, not Christianity, that 
proved incredible when subjected to searching examina- 
tion. The worship of the gods declined, while the wor- 
ship of God and his Son, Jesus Christ, spread rapidly 
through the Roman world. The attacks of the pagan 
scholars and philosophers hardly retarded the process 
perceptibly, though for a time they seemed to constitute 
a serious danger. 



CHRISTIANITY AND THE C^SARS 41 

These attacks were answered by Christian writers, so 
completely, so conclusively, that later defenders of the 
faith have had little to do but repeat, amplify, and re- 
state their arguments. Among the ablest were Justin, 
Tertullian, and Origen. * Justin, the earliest, was a Pla- 
tonist, and in his writings stood mainly on the defensive. 
His two apologies, addressed to the Roman emperors, 
were largely devoted to showing that Christians were 
falsely accused by their enemies, that they were not to 
be blamed for public calamities, and that in all things 
they were good Romans and loyal subjects of the em- 
peror. In addition he maintained that the Scriptures are 
the only source of truth, the pagan mythologies abound- 
ing in falsehoods and contradictions. In his dialogue 
with Trypho, Justin attempts to answer the usual ob- 
jections of the Jews to the Christian faith, and to prove 
the Messiahship of Jesus from the Old Testament. This 
is almost the only trace, outside of the New Testament, 
of controversy between Jews and Christians. Tertul- 
lian defended the supernatural element in Christianity 
with great skill. He is the most finished rhetorician 
among the early Christian apologists, and seldom stood 
on the defensive, but boldly carried the war into Africa. 
He was a man of genius, but there was a strain of 
enthusiasm or fanaticism in him that made him an un- 
safe guide; nevertheless, his services as a defender of 
the faith were great. 

The culmination of this series of apologies was the 
treatise of Origen against Celsus. He was born of Chris- 
tian parents at Alexandria, in 185. The statement will 
be found in many books of reference that he was bap- 
tized in infancy, but as there is no record of his bap- 
tism the statement can be nothing more than an infer- 
ence from the fact that he advocated infant baptism 
in later years. It is more probable that he was not bap- 



42 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

tized in infancy, since the custom was far from general 
when he was born. He received a careful education 
and as a boy knew whole sections of the Bible perfectly. 
During the greater part of his life he was a teacher 
at Alexandria — though he was art one time deposed from 
the office of presbyter, excommunicated and exiled — 
and was in high repute as a scholar and writer. 

Origen labored to reconcile Greek philosophy with 
biblical theology, not with entire success, since his teach- 
ings afforded some ground for the charges of heresy 
brought against him. His doctrine concerning Christ 
was the precursor of the later Arianism, and his denial 
of eternal punishment has had a great influence on the 
church in every succeeding century. His great work 
against Celsus, valuable as it was in its time, had not 
the same worth for the church of all time as his exe- 
getical studies. He was the first commentator on the 
Scriptures who seriously set himself, by grammatical 
and historical study of the text, to ascertain what the 
word of God really means. This was, in truth, his great- 
est contribution to apologetics, though in form it was 
not a defense of Christianity. Has it not been true in 
all the ages since, that the religion of Christ has been 
most successfully defended by those who have best set 
forth its teachings to the world, "not by those who have 
ostensibly, not to say ostentatiously, gone about the 
task of formal defense? The most effective refutation 
of error is to teach the truth. 

The victory of Christianity was no less complete in 
controversy than in the civil conflict. About the time 
the emperors were convinced that persecution was futile, 
the philosophers saw the uselessness of criticism. The 
triumph of Christianity was the survival of the fittest. 
It won because truth must win when pitted against 
error, since it has behind it all the power of God. In 







^j^3 






1 9B ** N 


^- i 






IF% 


jrf JffirU 




^^^/-" 






W I 




J 




1 jH^' ' 
HI \ lH 


jH$PP9 












9 " 








»" :>m 


x*Mfe^^SSB 






-,; : '■•■'.. .'"-'■■v- :r .-.. : \ 





Page 42 



The Emperor Marcus Aurelius 



CHRISTIANITY AND THE CAESARS 43 

these ages, as in many others, we can now see that the 
opposition of pagan writers was a blessing to the church. 
It compelled Christians to examine well the foundations 
of their faith, to study the Bible and systematize its teach- 
ings, to recognize the discrepancies and apparent con- 
tradictions of the Scriptures and inquire how and how 
far these might be harmonized. The result was that 
Christianity emerged from its conflict with paganism re- 
joicing in a faith greatly strengthened, and above all 
more intelligent. The faith of the church in its Scrip- 
tures as a divine revelation could never be seriously 
shaken after the searching tests they had so triumphantly 
encountered. 

But the victory was in part a defeat also; as often 
happens, the conquered overcame the conquerors. Chris- 
tianity apparently vanquished heathenism, but heathen- 
ism succeeded in injecting much of its superstition and 
ritual into Christianity. In the long struggle with the 
Caesars, Christianity had apparently won; but while ap- 
pearing to gain all, by obtaining the patronage of Con- 
stantine, it was in danger of losing all. The process of 
degeneracy and corruption — in polity, in doctrine, in 
spiritual life — had begun long before, but adversity had 
kept the church comparatively pure. Now it became 
rapidly assimilated to the world, and the increase of 
the church in wealth, in numbers, and in worldly power 
was accompanied by an equally marked decadence of 
spiritual life, and a departure from the simplicity of the 
apostolic doctrine and practice. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 

BEFORE the last of the apostles had passed away, 
there were unmistakable signs of degeneracy and 
corruption in the Christian churches. Warnings against 
heresies and false teachers, not as future dangers but as 
present, are found in all of the later New Testament writ- 
ings. From the very first, the preaching of the cross was 
to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolish- 
ness; and even when Jews and Greeks were converted 
they endeavored to amalgamate the old religion with the 
new. In spite of our Lord's assurance that the new wine 
could not be put into the old bottles without the loss 
of both, this attempt went on. Profoundly as the re- 
ligion of the Jews differed from that of the Greeks and 
of other heathen nations, yet all pre-Christian religions 
had one element in common — they promised salvation to 
those who would attain the scrupulous observance of ec- 
clesiastical rites. The note of all religions before Chris- 
tianity was salvation by works ; Christianity alone taught 
salvation by faith. 

The efforts of converts imperfectly converted to assim- 
ilate Christianity to their former faith were only too suc- 
cessful. They failed to grasp the fundamental principles 
of the new religion, that each soul's destiny is the result 
of a personal relation to Jesus Christ, that eternal life is 
not the mere escape from retribution hereafter, but that 
it begins here in an intimate and vital union with the 
Son of God. They imagined that eternal destiny is set- 
tled by outward act, that the wrath of God may be 
44 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 45 

averted by rites and ceremonies. The natural result was 
the substitution of formalism for spirituality, devotion to 
the externals of religion taking the place of living faith. 
To this one root may be traced in turn every one of 
the corruptions of the church, all of its aberrations of 
doctrine and practice. So soon as the churches founded 
by the apostles lost sight of the truth that man must be 
born again, and that this new birth is always associated 
with personal faith in Christ, the way was prepared for 
all that followed. 

In the earliest Christian literature, after the apostolic 
period, we may trace three tendencies toward degenera- 
tion, all proceeding from this common cause, developing 
along lines parallel at first, yet distinct, afterward con- 
verging, and at length constituting a logical, consistent 
whole. These are: the idea of a Holy Catholic Church, 
the ministry a priesthood, and sacramental grace. 

Jesus prayed that his disciples might be one, and his 
apostles taught that the church is the temple of the Holy 
Ghost, and therefore both one and holy. Early in the 
second century, however, these ideas assumed a different 
form from that of the New Testament. The churches 
were conceived of as forming together one Church, not 
spiritual merely, but visible, extending throughout the 
world, and therefore catholic (t. e., universal). Perse- 
cution doubtless had much to do with emphasizing in the 
minds of Christians their unity, but an exaggerated no- 
tion of the value of formal oneness came to prevail, until 
schism was reckoned the deadliest of sins a Christian 
could commit. The preservation of outward unity thus 
becoming the paramount consideration, it followed that 
whatever error a majority in the church might come to 
hold, the minority must accept it, rather than be guilty 
of this deadly sin of schism. This ideal of a Holy 
Catholic Church, outside of which was no salvation, unity 



46 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

with which was necessary to unity with Christ, prepared 
the way for all the corruptions that were introduced. 

Another parallel development downward in the second 
century was the attribution of some mystical or magical 
power to baptism. It must be confessed that there are 
a few passages in the New Testament writings which, 
if they stood alone, would favor this view. " Except a 
man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). " Which also 
after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism " 
(1 Peter 3 : 14). "Arise and be baptized, and wash 
away thy sins " (Acts 22 : 16) : If passages like these 
stood alone, unmodified, we should be compelled to the 
conclusion that faith alone, without baptism, does not 
avail to save. By ignoring to a great degree those other 
and relatively numerous passages in which the spirit is 
exalted above the letter, and faith is made the vital prin- 
ciple of the Christian life instead of ritual, the churches 
soon made outward rites of more significance than in- 
ward state. Baptism was regarded, not perhaps as ab- 
solutely necessary to salvation, but as so necessary an 
act that if it could not be performed precisely in accord- 
ance with Christ's command and apostolic precedent, 
some simulacrum of it must be substituted. 

The Christians of that age were indeed justified in 
laying great stress on the importance of obeying Christ 
in baptism. It never seems to have occurred to them, as 
it has occurred to Christians of recent times, to evade 
this command, because to obey was inconvenient or dis- 
tasteful; or on the avowed ground that something else 
might be substituted for the act commanded that would 
be more accordant with the delicate sensibilities of culti- 
vated and refined people. Their obedience was implicit, 
ready, complete. Its one fault was an excess of virtue — 
an attempt to obey in cases where obedience was im- 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 47 

possible. When water in sufficient quantities for immer- 
sion was wanting, there could be no proper baptism ; but, 
as baptism was now conceived to be so very important, 
something must be done, and water was in such cases 
poured upon the head thrice, in quantities as profuse as 
possible, no doubt, thus counterfeiting immersion as 
nearly as might be. The true principle was missed — 
that where obedience is impossible God accepts the will- 
ingness to obey for obedience itself; and the wrong 
principle was adopted — that God can be obeyed by doing 
something other than what he commands. 

We see the first step in this process in the document 
known as " The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," 
which scholars assign to the first half of the second 
century. The injunction regarding baptism is : " Now 
concerning baptism, thus baptize ye : having first uttered 
all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in running water. 
But if thou hast not running water, baptize in other 
water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. 
But if thou hast neither, pour water upon the head 
thrice, into the name of the Father, and Son, and Holy 
Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer and the 
baptized fast, and whatsoever others can; but the bap- 
tized thou shalt command to fast for two or three days 
before." There is only a bare hint here of a sacramental 
idea, but by the time of Justin Martyr (about a. d. 150) 
the process of identifying the sign with the thing signi- 
fied had made no little progress. He calls baptism " the 
water-bath of regeneration." " Those who believe our 
doctrine," he says, " are led by us to a place where 
there is water, and in this way they are regenerated." 
By the time of Tertullian (200) the idea of baptismal 
regeneration is firmly established. That is to say, bap- 
tism is no longer regarded as merely a type or symbol 



48 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of regeneration, but the means by which the Spirit of 
God effected regeneration. In the writings of the Ante- 
Nicene church Fathers, the use of " regenerate " to 
mean " baptize " is so common as to be almost the rule. 
For a time, doubtless, the usage was figurative, but the 
figure was soon lost sight of, and baptism was accepted 
as a literal means of regeneration. 

One of the first practical consequences of this doctrine 
regarding baptism was the usage known as " clinic " 
baptism (from Mine, a couch), or the baptism of those 
supposably sick unto death. The first recorded case of 
this kind, though others may have occurred before, is 
that of Novatian (sometime before 250). Being very 
ill, and supposed to be near death, yet desiring to be 
baptized and wash away his sins, water was brought and 
poured about him as he lay on his couch, immersion 
being thus simulated as closely as possible under the 
circumstances. Novatian recovered, however, or we 
should probably never have heard of this case, and after- 
ward entered the ministry, but the sufficiency of his clinic 
baptism was from the first disputed. The question of 
the validity of such baptisms was submitted to Cyprian, 
bishop of Africa, and in one of the letters of that eccle- 
siastic we have an elaborate discussion of the matter. 
He was asked, he tells us, " of those who obtain God's 
grace in sickness and weakness, whether they are to be 
accounted legitimate Christians, for that they are not 
to be washed, but affused (non loti sunt, sed perfusi) 
with the saving waters." His chief argument was one 
since common among mutilators of the ordinance, that 
a little water would answer as well as much. His con- 
clusion was that "the sprinkling of water (aspersio), 
prevails equally with the washing of salvation ; and that 
when this is done in the church, when the faith both of 
receiver and giver is sound, all things hold and may be 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 49 

consummated and perfected by the majesty of the Lord, 
and by the truth of faith." 

It will be noted by the attentive reader of these words 
that the decision rests wholly on the sacramental no- 
tion that baptism conveys God's saving grace. It was 
a natural conclusion by those who held this view that 
God's grace could work with a little water as well as 
with more. But it was long before Cyprian's view fully 
prevailed in the church. It was agreed, to be sure, that 
clinic baptism would suffice for salvation, but it was felt 
to be an incomplete and unsatisfactory form, and ordi- 
nation was long refused those who had been subjects of 
this mutilated ceremony. The idea that affusion would 
serve as baptism in other than cases of extreme necessity 
made its way very slowly in the church, and that form 
of administration had no official sanction until the Synod 
of Ravenna, in 1311, decided that " baptism is to be 
administered by trine aspersion or immersion." 

The first clinic baptisms, as we have seen, were per- 
formed by so surrounding the body of the sick person 
with water that he might be said to be immersed in 
water. It was, however, a short and easy step to dimin- 
ish the quantity of water, and then to apply it to other 
than sick persons. The practice of perfusion and affu- 
sion gradually increased from the time of Novatian, 
though for several centuries immersion continued to be 
the prevailing administration of the ordinance. 

Another consequence of the idea of baptismal regen- 
eration was the baptism of infants. It logically followed, 
if those unbaptized were unregenerate, that all who died 
in infancy were unsaved. This was a conclusion from 
which the Christian consciousness of the early cen- 
turies revolted as strongly as that of our own day, which 
utterly rejects the Westminster declaration that " elect 
infants " are saved, with its logical corollary that non- 



50 A SHOUT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

elect infants are lost. The true solution of the difficulty 
would have been found in a return to apostolic ideas of 
the nature and function of baptism; but a contrary idea 
having become too deeply settled in the church for such 
a return, the only alternative solution was to baptize 
infants, so that they might be regenerated and saved if 
they died before reaching the years in which personal 
faith is possible. 

Just when infant baptism began is uncertain ; scholars 
have disputed long over the question without arriving at 
any decisive proof. The passages often quoted from the 
writings of Justin and Irenaeus are admitted by candid 
Pedobaptist scholars to fall far short of proof that infants 
were baptized in their times. It is tolerably certain, how- 
ever, that by the time of Tertullian the practice was com- 
mon, though by no means universal. We know, for ex- 
ample, that Augustine, though the son of the godly 
Monica, was not baptized in infancy, but on personal pro- 
fession of faith at the age of thirty-three. Gregory of 
Nazianzum and Chrysostom are two others. Similar 
cases were frequent without a doubt, though from this 
time on they became more rare, until after the sixth cen- 
tury the practice of infant baptism was universal, or 
nearly so. Nothing in the history of the church did so 
much as this departure from apostolic precedent to pre- 
pare the way for papacy. It introduced into the church 
a multitude whose hearts were unchanged by the Spirit 
of God, who were worldly in aims and in life, and who 
sought for the worldly advancement of the church that 
thus their own power and importance might be magnified. 
This consummation was doubtless aided and hastened by 
the rapid contemporary growth of the church in numbers 
and its increase in worldly prosperity. 

In the section concerning baptism, already quoted from 
" The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," the catechu- 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 5 1 

menate is already recognized, at least in germ. Baptism 
was no longer to be administered upon the mere confes- 
sion of faith, but was to be preceded by a somewhat 
elaborate instruction, for which the first six chapters of 
the " Teaching " were originally devised. The catechu- 
menate was not in itself a departure from the funda- 
mental principles of the primitive churches. There was a 
necessity, such as is felt by the missionaries in heathen 
lands at this day, of instructing converts in the first 
principles of the Christian faith. It is true now in 
heathendom as it was then, that a sufficient knowledge 
of the Christian faith for salvation may be gained in 
a comparatively brief time, while the convert is in a 
dense state of ignorance regarding all else that separates 
Christianity from his heathen faith. Accordingly, our 
own missionaries are compelled in some cases, perhaps 
in all, to exercise caution in the reception of those heathen 
who profess conversion, and to give them such prelim- 
inary instruction in Christian doctrine as will enable them 
intelligently to become disciples of Christ and members 
of a Christian church. But it is evident that instruction 
of this kind, prior to baptism, should be extremely simple 
and elementary, and need not be greatly protracted. So 
soon as the catechumenate was an established institu- 
tion in the Catholic Church, its system of instruction be- 
came elaborate and prolonged, and candidates were de- 
layed in these schools of instruction for many months, 
even for several years, before they were allowed to be 
baptized. The tendency of such an institution was to 
foster the idea that men might be educated into Christi- 
anity, and to decrease the reliance of the church upon 
the agency of the Holy Spirit in the conversion of men. 
The practical result was to introduce many into the 
church who had never been subjects of the regenerating 
grace of God, but had simply been instructed in Chris- 



52 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

tianity as a system of theology or philosophy, and their 
intellectual assent to its teachings was accepted as equiv- 
alent to saving faith. What might have been and doubt- 
less was at first an effective agency for good, became an 
instrument for the corruption of the church. While it 
endured and flourished, however (from the second to the 
fifth centuries), the catechumenate was an evidence not 
to be controverted of the general prevalence of adult 
baptism. Its decline and the growth of infant baptism 
were synchronous. 

The idea of sacramental grace did not stop with the 
corruption of the doctrine of baptism, but extended to 
the Communion, or Eucharist, as it came to be generally 
called from the second century onward. There are pas- 
sages in the early Fathers that amply justify the later 
doctrine known as the real presence and consubstantia- 
tion, if they do not go to the extreme length of transub- 
stantiation. With the decrease of vital faith the in- 
crease of formalism kept pace, and the administration 
of the Lord's Supper, from being a simple and spiritual 
ceremony, became surrounded by a cloud of ritual and 
finally developed into the mass of the Roman Church. 
Laying as great a stress as Luther did later upon the mere 
letter of Scripture, the church of the third and fourth 
centuries insisted that the words " This is my body " 
were to be accepted by all faithful Christians as a literal 
statement of truth, and that Paul's words when he 
says that the broken bread is the body of Christ do not 
indicate a spiritual partaking of Christ's nature, but a 
literal and materialistic reception of it and through the 
bread and wine. 

The development of the sacerdotal idea was an equally 
powerful agency in corrupting the church. Though the 
idea of a priesthood, other than the priesthood of all be- 
lievers, is not found in the New Testament, we find it 




Pa-c 



The Baptistery o? St. John I.atera: 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 53 

very early in the post-apostolic literature. Both Jews 
and pagans were familiar with this idea of a priesthood, 
and they naturally, almost inevitably, carried their old 
religious ideas over into the religion that they had 
adopted in their adult years. For a time the Fathers 
seem to have used sacerdotal terms as they used sacra- 
mental terms, with a figurative rather than a literal mean- 
ing. When they speak of " sanctuary " and "altar," 
of " priest " and " sacrifice," they do not at first mean 
all that those words literally imply; but it was not long 
before the figure of speech disappeared and the literal 
meaning only remained. Clement of Rome was the first 
writer to draw a parallel between the Christian ministry 
and the Levitical priesthood, and is the first to speak of 
the " laity " as distinct from the clergy. In Tertullian 
and Cyprian we may trace the completion of the process, 
and by the end of the third century or early in the 
fourth, the idea was generally accepted that the clergy 
formed an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal order, a priestly 
caste completely separate from the laity. 

So great a corruption in the idea of the functions of 
the ministry could hardly be unaccompanied by a change 
in its form; and the degeneration we have traced in the 
practices of the church would naturally affect its polity. 
What we might reasonably expect to happen did in fact 
come to pass. In the New Testament we find presbyter- 
bishops, one office with two interchangeable titles, but 
early in the second century we find bishops and pres- 
byters, two offices, not one, the bishop being superior to 
the presbyters. Just how this happened is not known, 
but it is supposed that in churches where a plurality of 
elders was found, one of the presbyters became the 
leader or president — whether by seniority, force of char- 
acter or election can only be conjectured, and is unim- 
portant, To him the title of bishop was gradually 



54 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

appropriated, so that from being at first only primus inter 
pares he came, after a generation or two, to be re- 
garded as superior to the presbyters. This is the state 
of things that we find in the letters of Ignatius, written 
about the year a. d. 115. But the bishop was as yet 
bishop of a single church, though there may have been 
several congregations, each with its presbyters. The 
state of things was not unlike that which we find now 
in some of our large cities, where a church has a pastor 
and several assistants, ministers like himself, who have 
charge of mission stations in various parts of the city. 
If, now, we were to give to such a pastor the exclusive 
title of bishop, and regard his assistants as presbyters 
only, we should almost exactly reproduce the polity that 
we find in Ignatius. 

How and when this episcopate became diocesan we 
do not exactly know. As the churches of the great 
cities in the empire sent out preachers into the suburbs 
and adjacent towns, and new churches were formed, they 
would not unnaturally come under the authority of this 
bishop. We find from Irenaeus onward his jurisdiction, 
originally described as his parish (paroikia), gradually 
enlarging, until the third century sees the diocesan sys- 
tem quite fully established. Cyprian goes so far as to 
call the bishop the vicegerent of Christ in things spiritual, 
and almost to make him the church itself : " The church 
is in the bishop, and the bishop is in the church, and 
if any one is not with the bishop he is not in the church." 

We may also trace in these early centuries the be- 
ginnings of the characteristic doctrines and practices 
that we associate with Romanism. " The church of the 
first four centuries " is the shibboleth of many High 
Churchmen, but they who adopt this motto must as- 
suredly be wofully ignorant of the Fathers about whom 
they talk so much. If all roads do not lead to Rome, 



THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 55 

this one certainly does. Make antiquity the test of truth 
and Rome has the argument — if by " antiquity " is meant 
as is usually the case, the first four centuries of Chris- 
tianity, exclusive of the evidence of the New Testament. 
In those centuries we find the full doctrine of the mass, 
the doctrine of penance, confession and priestly absolu- 
tion, purgatory, the invocation of saints and the use of 
images in worship. In short, we find all of Romanism 
but its name and the pope. 

We find another thing, not alone characteristic of Ro- 
manism, though most prominent in that system, a growth 
of asceticism resulting in the practice of clerical celibacy 
and monachism. This likewise may be traced to the 
root-idea of salvation by works. The Gnostic and Man- 
ichaean heresies, though nominally rejected by the 
Church, were in part accepted. Teaching an eternal 
conflict between spirit and matter, and that the latter is 
the source of all evil, this philosophy was easily recon- 
ciled with the idea of salvation by works. Sin was held 
to be the result of the union of man's spirit with a body, 
and only by keeping the body under, mortifying the flesh 
by fasting and maceration, could sin be overcome. The 
contempt for marriage and the undue exaltation of vir- 
ginity that appears in the Fathers, notably in Jerome, 
not only gave impetus to monachism and the celibacy of 
the clergy, with their vast train of evils, but laid the 
foundation for the exaltation of Mary above her Son, and 
the idolatries and blasphemies of Roman Catholicism. 

It would be unprofitable to go further into the details 
of this doctrinal and moral corruption of Christianity. 
All its ramifications sprang from the one idea that sal- 
vation is not the free gift of God through Christ, but 
something to be earned by human effort or purchased 
from a store of merits laid up by the saints. But it is 
worth our while to note, in conclusion, that the rapidity 



56 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

with which the doctrine, ritual, and polity of the early 
church degenerated, was directly proportioned to its 
growth in wealth and worldly prosperity. There is no 
lesson taught by the first centuries that needs to be 
learned now by Baptists more than this. So long as the 
church was feeble, persecuted, and poor, though in some 
things it departed from the standard of the New Tes- 
tament, it was comparatively pure in both doctrine and 
life. Adversity refined and strengthened it; prosperity 
weakened and corrupted it. What the persecutions of 
Nero and Domitian were powerless to accomplish, the 
patronage of Constantine and his successors did only too 
well. Baptists have had their period of adversity, when 
they inherited Christ's promise, " Blessed are ye when 
men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all 
manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." Will 
they endure the harder test of prosperity, when they are 
great in numbers, in wealth, in influence, so that all men 
speak well of them? 



CHAPTER V 

THE STRUGGLE FOR A PURE CHURCH 

THIS degeneration in the church, whose stages we 
traced in the preceding chapter, was a gradual 
process, whose completion occupied several centuries. It 
did not occur without resistance, determined, pro- 
longed, and frequently renewed. Many attempts were 
made at a reformation of the church, a return to the 
simplicity and purity of the apostolic churches. The 
truth was not totally eclipsed at first, only obscured; 
from time to time men taught anew the spiritual nature 
of Christ's church, the necessity of regeneration in order 
to membership in a church of Christ, salvation by grace 
and not by sacraments and penances. At times these 
reactions promised to be successful, but they all in turn 
failed to effect their object. Some failed by their own 
inherent weakness, others were suppressed by force, and 
in the end the Holy Catholic Church triumphed over 
them all. It is instructive to consider the causes of the 
partial success and the final failure of these attempts to 
restore an evangelical Christianity. 

The first of these protests against the corrupt teach- 
ings and life that had come to be prevalent in the church, 
even in the second century, was Montanism. Little is 
positively known about the origin of the Montanists, 
and even the existence of their reputed founder has been 
denied. Montanus is said to have been a native of 
Phrygia, a converted priest of Cybele, and began his 
teachings about 150. He soon gathered about him many 
followers, among whom were two women of rank, Maxi- 

57 



58 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

milla and Priscilla (Prisca), who left their husbands to 
become evangelists of the new sect, among whom they 
were soon esteemed prophetesses. The new teaching 
spread with great rapidity, and for a time met with 
little opposition. We are more fortunate in regard to 
the Montanists than in the case of many " heretical " 
sects, for we are not dependent solely on their Catholic 
opponents for a knowledge of their teachings; a large 
part of the writings of Tertullian, their ablest adherent 
and advocate, are also available for our instruction in 
this matter. From these and other sources we gather 
that the characteristic doctrines of Montanism were 
three. 

First, they clearly apprehended the fundamental truth 
that a church of Christ should consist of the regenerate 
only. As a result of the doctrine of sacramental grace, 
large numbers were becoming members of the church 
who, in the judgment of the most charitable, could not 
be regarded as regenerate. This was true of the adults 
baptized on profession of faith, and the case became 
continually worse as the practice of infant baptism ex- 
tended. Montanus advocated a return to the principle 
of the New Testament — a spiritual church. His im- 
mediate followers called themselves " spiritual " Chris- 
tians, as distinguished from the " carnal " who were 
found in the Catholic Church in great numbers. The 
Spirit of God has not only regenerated every Christian, 
they taught, but dwells in an especial manner in every 
believer, even as Jesus promised the Paraclete (John 
16: 13). 

So far the Montanists were strictly scriptural. But 
they went on to teach that by virtue of this indwelling 
of the Paraclete the " spiritual " not only received an 
illumination that enabled them to apprehend the truth 
already revealed, but were given special revelations. The 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A PURE CHURCH 59 

gifts of prophecy and divine inspiration were theretore 
perpetual in the church. The Montanistic prophets 
spoke with tongues, with accompaniments of ecstasy and 
trance. Montanus himself seems to have brought over 
to his Christian faith not a few of his heathen notions. 
Soothsaying and divination, accompanied by ecstasy and 
trance, were characteristic of the Cybele cultus; and 
though the Montanists rejected the soothsaying and div- 
ination as Satanic, they believed the ecstasy and trance 
to be marks of divine communications. The revelations 
thus received by these prophets were held to be supple- 
mentary, and in a sense superior, to Scripture. A spe- 
cial sanctity was attributed to the sayings of Montanus, 
Maximilla, and Prisca; but the few examples that have 
been preserved seem in nowise remarkable. 

This was perhaps the gravest departure of Montanism 
from the model of New Testament Christianity on which 
it professed to be formed. This single note shows a 
complete separation in spirit between Montanists and 
those whose fundamental belief is that in the canon of 
Scripture we have a complete and authoritative revela- 
tion from God, and that whatever contradicts the written 
word is of necessity to be rejected as untrue. One may 
trace a curious correspondence in many things between 
this Montanistic teaching and the doctrine regarding the 
" inner light " held by the Society of Friends ; and an 
equally curious correspondence between the history of 
Montanism and the rise in our own day of the sect 
known as Irvingites, though they prefer to call them- 
selves the Catholic Apostolic Church. It has often hap- 
pened in the history of Christianity that a sect or party, 
beginning with the object of restoring the doctrine and 
practice of apostolic times, has fallen into fanaticism and 
false teaching, because, like Montanism, it failed to keep 
closely to the word of God, as the sole and sufficient rule 



60 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of faith and practice, not to be supplemented by pre- 
tended new revelations any more than by the traditions 
of men. The supreme authority of the New Testament 
is the only safe principle for a reformation of religion; 
if the history of the church teaches anything it teaches 
that. 

The second of the chief features in Montanism was 
a belief in the speedy coming of Christ to reign with 
his saints a thousand years. The fragmentary sayings 
of their prophets that have come down to us, the writ- 
ings of Tertullian, and the testimonies of the Catholic 
writers against Montanism combine to make this certain. 
This chiliastic doctrine was then, as often in the later 
ages of Christianity, tinged with fanaticism. Wherever 
it has been held by any considerable body of Christians, 
it has been associated with grave errors and serious 
disturbances. 

This teaching regarding the second coming of Christ 
doubtless gave a great stimulus to the ascetic spirit 
among the Montanists, which was their third leading 
characteristic. Their idea of a regenerate church nat- 
urally necessitated a strict discipline, but by no means 
discipline on an ascetic basis. The Scriptures teach the 
need of self-control, temperance, subduing the lust of 
the flesh, keeping the body under; but this victory is to 
be won by spiritual, not by physical means. Keeping 
the body under does not mean starving or macerating 
the body. The New Testament honors the body, and 
does not teach that it is the essential enemy of the spirit. 
That is a heathen notion, probably derived from the 
Manichseans, or possibly from the Gnostics, who also 
taught the essential evil of matter. 

From some such source, certainly not from the Scrip- 
tures, the Montanists obtained the notion that to mortify 
the flesh is the road to heaven; and among them fasts 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A PURE CHURCH 6l 

and vigils were commended, if not commanded, as pro- 
ductive of the bodily state most conducive to holiness. 
In similar spirit they forbade the use of ornaments. 
They exalted virginity above marriage, as a state of 
greater purity, and forbade second marriage as equiva- 
lent to adultery. Seven sins were regarded as peculiarly 
deadly or mortal (pride, covetousness, lust, anger, glut- 
tony, envy, sloth), which when committed after baptism, 
might be forgiven by God, but should forever cut the 
sinner off from communion with the church. 

At first Montanism was rather a party than a sect, an 
ecclesiola in ecclesia, and for a time it was tolerated by 
the bishop of Rome and seemed likely to prevail in the 
church. The Roman bishop finally rejected Montanism 
as a heresy, and his already recognized primacy in the 
West, at least, caused this decision to be generally ac- 
cepted. Professor M oiler 1 is simply just when he says : 

Soon the conflict assumed such a form that the Montanists 
were compelled to separate from the Catholic Church and form 
an independent or schismatic church. But Montanism was, 
nevertheless, not a new form of Christianity; nor were the 
Montanists a new sect. On the contrary, Montanism was simply 
a reaction of the old, the primitive church, against the obvious 
tendency of the church of the day — to strike a bargain with the 
world, and arrange herself comfortably in it. 

Much nonsense has been written by historians about 
Montanism, because they could not or would not grasp 
this idea. The Montanists were in general rigidly or- 
thodox, and no serious aberration from the Catholic 
faith is alleged against them by their opponents. No 
council formally condemned them, and they were treated 
as schismatics rather than as heretics. For their schism 
the Catholic Church was responsible; they did not go 
out, they were driven out from the church. The church 

1 Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, article " Montanism." 



62 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

at large resisted and rejected the reformation that Mon- 
tanism attempted, but it adopted precisely those features 
in Montanism that were least scriptural — namely, its 
asceticism, and its belief that the written revelation ad- 
mits of supplementary revelations. There is this differ- 
ence, however, that Rome makes the Spirit dwell in the 
church at large, not in each believer, so that his revela- 
tions are made through the church, and especially 
through its head, both church and pope being preserved 
from error by this indwelling Spirit. 

Of course the Montanists immersed — no other bap- 
tism, so far as we know, was practised by anybody in 
the second century. There is no evidence that they bap- 
tized infants, and their principle of a regenerate church 
would naturally require the baptism of believers only. 
In their polity they seem not to have differed from the 
Catholics ; for, though Tertullian speaks as if the idea 
of the priesthood of all believers was prevalent among 
them, he also speaks of " bishop and clergy," and the 
" ecclesiastical order." The only natural conclusion, 
from his undoubtedly Montanistic writings, is that the 
Montanist bishop was like the Catholic, an officer above 
the presbyter in rank and authority. 

Montanism declined rapidly after the fourth century, 
though traces of it are found as late as the sixth. It 
has seemed worth while to set down thus fully the ascer- 
tained facts concerning this party, because many writers 
have claimed that the Montanists were Baptists in all 
but the name. Nothing has been said concerning them 
except what is abundantly proved by their own litera- 
ture; and every intelligent reader will be able to judge 
for himself in what respects they held the views of 
modern Baptists and how far they diverged from what 
we hold to be the teachings of the Scriptures. 

Another partial reformation of the church was at- 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A PURE CHURCH 63 

tempted by the Novatians about the middle of the third 
century. Novatian was the man whose clinic baptism 
has already been described. He recovered from his sup- 
posed mortal sickness and was ordained a presbyter by 
Fabian, bishop of the church of Rome. When Fabian 
died, in 250, there was a vacancy in the office for about 
a year. The terrible Decian persecution was then rag- 
ing, and many Christians, overcome by the prospect of 
death, denied the faith and sacrificed to the emperor. 
The question soon arose, What should be done with these 
faithless Christians (lap si) when they afterward pro- 
fessed penitence, and desired to be readmitted into the 
church ? 

Two views prevailed, and soon two rival parties in 
the church advocated them. One party favored a strict 
discipline; those who had lapsed had committed mortal 
sin through their idolatry and should remain perpetually 
excluded from the church — though even the stricter party 
conceded that if one of the lapsed were sick unto death 
he should be absolved. The other party held that per- 
petual exclusion of the lapsed from the church and its 
sacraments — in which alone salvation could be found — 
was to anticipate the judgment of God. They, there- 
fore would take a more merciful view of the infirmity 
of those who had yielded under the stress of persecu- 
tion, and would restore the lapsed to the communion of 
the church, after a public confession and a period of 
probation. 

During the vacancy in the Roman episcopate, No- 
vatian was the leading man in the church, and strongly 
inclined toward the stricter discipline. The laxer party 
seem, however, to have been in the majority, and in 251 
they elected Cornelius as bishop. His election appears 
to have been entirely regular, but the stricter party would 
not acknowledge him, and chose Novatian, who was 



64 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

consecrated by three obscure Italian bishops. A synod 
held at Rome, probably in October, 257, excommunicated 
him and his followers. Thereafter they constituted a 
separate sect, called by their opponents Novatians, but 
themselves preferring the title of Cathari (the pure). 
The Novatians were the earliest Anabaptists ; refusing to 
recognize as valid the ministry and sacraments of their 
opponents, and claiming to be the true church, they were 
logically compelled to rebaptize all who came to them 
from the Catholic Church. The party gained great 
strength in Asia Minor, where many Montanists joined 
it, and in spite of persecution, the Novatians survived 
to the sixth or seventh century. In this case, as generally, 
persecution stimulated what it would have destroyed. 

The Donatist party in Africa, like the Novatians in 
Rome, seemed to originate in a mere squabble over an 
office. Two parties were formed in the church of 
Carthage regarding the treatment of those who had sur- 
rendered the sacred books to be burned during the Dio- 
cletian persecution (303-311). These traditores, as they 
were called, incurred great odium. When Caecilian was 
elected bishop of Carthage in 311, it was as the repre- 
sentative of those who favored the readmission of 
traditores to the church on easy terms. He was conse- 
crated bishop by Felix of Aptunga, instead of Secundas 
of Tigisis, the primate of Numidia. This was irregular, 
yet not in itself invalid ; but the stricter party refused 
to recognize Caecilian, on the ground that Felix was a 
traditor, and even Caecilian himself was not above sus- 
picion on this score. The real issue at stake was not 
who should be bishop of Carthage, but what should be 
the character of that church, and of the Christian 
churches of Africa generally. Dr. SchafF says of the 
controversy, writing with a candor and insight not 
common among church historians : 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A PURE CHURCH 65 

The Donatist controversy was a conflict between separatism 
and Catholicism; between ecclesiastical purism and ecclesiastical 
eclecticism; between the idea of the church as an exclusive com- 
munity of regenerate saints and the idea of the church as the 
general Christendom of State and people. It revolved around 
the doctrine of the essence of the Christian church, and, in par- 
ticular, of the predicate of holiness. . . The Donatists . . . 
laid chief stress on the predicate of the subjective holiness or 
personal worthiness of the several members, and made the catho- 
licity of the church and the efficacy of the sacraments dependent 
upon that. The true church, therefore, is not so much a school 
of holiness, as a society of those who are already holy; or at 
least of those who appear so; for that there are hypocrites, not 
even the Donatists could deny, and as little could they in earnest 
claim infallibility in their own discernment of men. By the tol- 
eration of those who are openly sinful, the church loses her 
holiness, and ceases to be a church. 1 

Unfortunately, the Donatists made one capital error: 
they appealed to the civil power to decide the question 
that was in its essence spiritual. Donatus himself, who 
was chosen bishop of Carthage by the stricter party in 
315, seems to have been opposed from the first to the 
intermeddling of the emperor with religious questions, 
but his party was not controlled by him in this matter. 
Constantine referred the dispute first to a select com- 
mittee of bishops, then to the synod of Aries, and finally 
decided the question himself on appeal. All these de- 
cisions were against the Donatists; and after the case 
had irrevocably gone against them, they came out as 
stanch defenders of religious liberty, and denied the 
right of the civil power to meddle in matters of faith 
and discipline. Their disinterestedness in taking this 
stand would have been less open to suspicion if they had 
professed it in the first instance and abstained from all 
appeals to the imperial power against their opponents. 
One who appeals to a court for redress is estopped in 

1 " History of the Christian Church," Vol. III., p. 365. 
E 



66 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

honor, as well as in law, from afterward denying its 
jurisdiction. 

Like the Novatians, the Donatists were Anabaptists, 
but their rebaptizing seems to have been based on a 
false idea, namely, that in baptism the chief thing is 
not the qualifications of the baptized, but those of the 
baptizer. The Donatists and Novatians both rebaptized 
those who came to them from the Catholic Church, not 
because they did not believe these persons regenerate 
when baptized, but because they denied the " orders " of 
the Catholic clergy. These ministers had been ordained 
by traditores, by bishops who were corrupt; they were 
members of a church that had apostatized from the pure 
faith, and therefore had no valid ministry or sacra- 
ments; and for this reason their baptism could not be 
accepted. 

Neither of these attempted reformations was suf- 
ficiently radical. Novatians and Donatists seem to have 
shared the errors of the Catholic Church regarding sac- 
ramental grace; their episcopacy cannot be distinguished 
from that of the Catholic Church, and was certainly far 
from the simplicity of apostolic order. The Donatists, 
at any rate, seem to have practised infant baptism; on 
any other supposition the arguments of Augustine, in 
refutation of their errors, are unintelligible. Both sects 
grasped the great truth of the essentially spiritual nature 
of the church, the necessity of regeneration and a godly 
life to membership in it; but they failed to follow this 
truth to its logical implications and to return to the New 
Testament faith and practice in all things. 

Many writers have treated this period as if the truth 
were only to be found with the so-called heretics, as- 
suming that the Catholic Church must necessarily be 
always in the wrong. But such is by no means the case ; 






THE STRUGGLE FOR A PURE CHURCH 67 

we are, on the contrary, often compelled to admit that 
as between the heretical sects and the Catholic Church 
the truth was with the latter. Wrong doctrine and 
practice were by no means uniformly triumphant. This 
was especially evident in the notable controversies re- 
garding the doctrine of the Person of Christ. Corrupt 
as Christianity was fast becoming, it had kept close to the 
Scripture in the fundamentals of Christian theology until 
the beginning of the fourth century. Then Arius, a 
presbyter of Alexandria, taught a doctrine, the germs 
of which may be found in the teachings of his pre- 
decessors (notably, Origen), but was first fully elab- 
orated by his logical and acute mind. His teaching was 
that the Father alone is God, unbegotten, unchangeable. 
The Son is the first of created beings, who existed be- 
fore the worlds were and created them ; he is the Logos, 
the perfect image of God, and may be called God in a 
sense; but he is not eternal, for he had a beginning, 
and is not of the same substance as the Father. Arius 
was an adroit, fascinating man, and propagated his doc- 
trine industriously. It obtained great currency in Pal- 
estine and Nicomedia, and spread to all parts of the 
empire, threatening to displace the orthodox faith. 

This spread was accompanied by much bitter contro- 
versy, and this fact moved Constantine to interfere. He 
was anxious, for political reasons, to preserve the peace 
and unity of the church, otherwise its value to him as an 
instrument of governing was gone. He therefore sum- 
moned a council of the bishops of the church, who, to the 
number of more than 300, assembled at Nicaea in 325. 
When he accepted Christianity, he made it the religion — 
or, at least, a religion — of the State. The emperor was 
the Pontifex Maximus of the old religion, its official head 
and high priest; and though but a layman in the new 
faith, he nevertheless aspired to a similar position of 



68 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

authority. Constantine, though at that time not even 
baptized, presided in his robes of State at the council of 
Nice, took an influential part in its business and greatly- 
influenced if he did not practically dictate its findings. 
This council decided against the Arians and adopted the 
orthodox creed that, with some later changes, still bears 
its name. 

Under Julian the apostate, orthodoxy suffered a re- 
verse and Arianism again seemed about to triumph; but 
when Theodosius I. became emperor — he having been 
trained under Nicene influences — he used all his power, 
and successfully, to suppress the heresy. The conflict 
was practically ended with the council of Constantinople 
(381), which readopted the Nicene creed, and from that 
time Arianism gradually disappears as a dangerous 
heresy, though it often reappeared in later ages. For 
a time, indeed, a form of semi-Arianism lingered in the 
church. The orthodox maintained that the Son is of the 
same substance with the Father (homo-onsion) ; the Ari- 
ans that he is of a different substance (hetero-ousion) ; 
the semi-Arians that he is of a like substance (homoi- 
ousion). Like most compromises, semi-Arianism could 
not be permanently acceptable to either party; to the 
orthodox it seemed as objectionable as Arianism itself, 
while to the Arians, though they were at first willing to 
accept it as a compromise (indeed, it came near getting 
into the Nicene creed), it seemed to concede too much 
to orthodoxy. 

Athanasius, the leader of the orthodox party, in its 
struggle against Arianism, was born in Alexandria about 
298, received a good education and entered the min- 
istry. At the time of the council of Nice he was not 
more than twenty-seven years of age, and only an arch- 
deacon, but he was one of the most prominent of the 
orthodox party and had a large share in the definition 



THE STRUGGLE FOR A PURE CHURCH 69 

of the creed adopted. A similar and even more remark- 
able case of theological precocity is that of Calvin, who 
published his immortal " Institutes " at the age of twenty- 
seven. In June, 328, Athanasius was chosen bishop of 
Alexandria, but was fiercely opposed from the first by 
the party of Arius. Three times they succeeded in driv- 
ing him from the city, twice by order of the emperor 
and once by violence. At one time it seemed a case of 
Athanasius contra mundum — this one man against the 
world; but with the victory of the orthodox party, he 
was suffered to return to Alexandria and there to pass 
his remaining days. He died in May, 373, before the 
council of Constantinople registered the final triumph of 
the orthodox faith. 

Athanasius saw clearly that a true doctrine of God 
was the only foundation for the absoluteness of Chris- 
tianity. He defended Christianity as truly divine, the 
highest revelation, an absolute and final revelation ; clearly 
seeing that, if the Arian doctrine were true, Christianity 
could be merely relatively true, and might be superseded 
by a more perfect revelation, or even by a higher human 
philosophy. He rightly contended, therefore, that the 
religion of Christ would be empty and meaningless if 
he who is set forth in the Scriptures as the one who 
unites God and man in real unity of being is not the 
absolute God, but merely the first of created beings. 
There could be no mediation between God and man by 
such a being, and the heart is therefore taken out of 
Christianity by Arianism. Athanasius was a doughty 
champion of the truth. His exegesis of Scripture is 
often faulty, but his dialectical skill was great, and in his 
extant writings he shows the philosophic contradictions 
and absurdities of the Arian system in a masterly way. 
Selections from these writings have been translated into 
English, and may be found in Vol. IV. of the " Nicene 



JO A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

and Post-Nicene Fathers " (second series). The so-called 
Athanasian creed, though long confidently attributed to 
him, is certainly not his composition, and cannot be 
positively traced to an earlier period than the eighth 
century. This creed was expunged from the prayer- 
book of the Episcopal Church in the United States in 
1785, but it is still required to be said or sung thirteen 
times a year in every parish of the Church of England. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ECLIPSE OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY 

FROM the close of the apostolic era, even beginning 
in the days of the apostles, we have seen two 
opposing tendencies struggling for the mastery in the 
churches of Christ, which may be briefly described as the 
spiritual and the w r orldly. Jesus and his apostles taught 
salvation by faith, but almost immediately some Chris- 
tians taught salvation by works. According to the former 
teaching, baptism and the Lord's Supper were ordinances 
to be observed by those regenerated by the Spirit of God ; 
according to the other teaching baptism and the Lord's 
Supper were sacraments, channels of divine grace, by 
which men were made regenerate and confirmed in holi- 
ness. The administration of such sacraments demanded 
a priesthood. So step by step, and by an inevitable 
process of evolution, the doctrine of salvation by works 
produced what we know to-day as the Roman Catholic 
Church, at its head an infallible pope, outside of which 
church salvation is assured to none. Against this process 
of development various bodies of Christians, as we have 
seen, contended in vain during the first four centuries. 
There were similar contentions throughout the process. 
The truth was never quite crushed to earth; there were 
always parties or sects, bitterly hated and persecuted by 
Catholics, that held with more or less consistency to the 
evangelical religion. These comparatively pure survivals 
are found latest in the two extreme portions of the then 
civilized Europe, in Britain and in Bulgaria. 
Rome's most audacious theft was when she seized 

7i 



72, A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

bodily the Apostle Peter and made him the putative head 
and founder of her system; but next to that brazen act 
stands her effrontery when she " annexed " the great mis- 
sionary preacher of Ireland and enrolled him among her 
" saints." In order to conceal the true character of the 
transaction, Romanists have published lying biographies 
of Patrick without number, until the real man has been 
quite forgotten. Modern research has, however, brought 
the truth to light once more. 

Patrick was born about 360, probably near what is now 
Dumbarton, Scotland. His father was a deacon and a 
Roman civil officer. At the age of sixteen he was carried 
away captive and sold into slavery in Ireland. Six years 
after he escaped, and in later life he was moved to become 
a Christian missionary to the people among whom he had 
lived as a slave. These facts, and all other trustworthy 
information about Patrick, we learn from two of his writ- 
ings that have survived, his " Confession " or " Epistle to 
the Irish," and an " Epistle to Coroticus." The date of 
his death is as uncertain as that of his birth, but tradition 
ascribes to him extreme old age. 

From these writings of Patrick we learn that his teach- 
ing and practice were, in many particulars at least, evan- 
gelical. The testimony is ample that he baptized believ- 
ers only. For example, he writes : " So that even after 
my death I may leave as legacies to my brethren, and to 
my sons whom I have baptized in the Lord, so many 
thousand men." " Perhaps, since I have baptized so many 
thousand men, I might have expected half a screpall [a 
coin worth six cents] from some of them; tell it to me 
and I will restore it to you." Not only is there no men- 
tion of infants, but he uniformly speaks of "men," 
" handmaidens of Christ," " women," and " baptized be- 
lievers." It is inconceivable that he should not have 
added " infants " had he baptized such. 



THE ECLIPSE OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY 73 

Again, from all that we can learn, Patrick's baptism 
was that of apostolic times, which was still general 
throughout Europe, immersion. He does not speak ex- 
plicitly on this point in his own writings, but the earliest 
accounts of his labors agree that his converts were bap- 
tized in fountains, wells, and streams. His baptism prob- 
ably differed from the apostolic in being trine immersion, 
since that was the form practised in the ancient British 
church, and in practically the whole Christian world in 
his day. 

Patrick also pays great reverence to Scripture as the 
supreme authority in religion. He never appeals to the 
authority of church, or council, or prelate, or creed, but 
to the word of God ; and in his extant writings, brief as 
they are, no fewer than one hundred and thirteen passages 
of Scripture are referred to or quoted. There is no trace 
in his letters of purgatory, mariolatry, or submission to 
the authority of pope. He did not oppose these things, 
he was simply ignorant of them, it would appear, though 
in some parts of the church they were fast gaining 
ground. 

The churches founded by Patrick, and those existing 
in other parts of Britain, were not according to apostolic 
pattern in some things. Patrick was himself a bishop, 
and the three orders of the ministry seem to have been 
already developed in the British churches of his day. 
Though celibacy of the clergy was not required, there 
was a strain of asceticism and monasticism in these 
churches that became very pronounced in succeeding ages. 
It is probable that few, if any, of these monasteries came 
into existence during Patrick's life, and in their earlier 
stages they were valuable educational and missionary 
centers, not what they afterwards became. 

The theology of these churches, up to the ninth century, 
continued to be remarkably sound and scriptural. They 



74 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

taught original sin and the impossibility of salvation by 
human merits or effort, Christ alone being the sinner's 
righteousness. They taught the vicarious atonement, the 
agency of the Holy Spirit in the conversion of men, 
justification by faith, the intercession of Christ alone for 
the saints, and held firmly to the administration of the 
Lord's Supper in both kinds. Sacramentalism began 
to make inroads soon after Patrick's time, however, for 
we find such phrases as " a sacrificial mystery," " the holy 
Eucharist," " the mysteries of the sacred Eucharist " and 
the like used to describe the Supper. This is a long way 
short of the mass; and so late as the ninth century John 
Scotus Erigena maintained that the bread and wine are 
no more than the symbols of the absent body and blood 
of Christ. These churches too knew nothing of the doc- 
trine of purgatory, but from Patrick onward for centuries 
taught that the souls of the saints immediately after death 
enter paradise and are with God. 

The progress from the simplicity of the gospel to the 
corruptions of Romanism was slower in Ireland and 
Britain than in any other part of Europe. Primitive 
doctrine and practice survived there, not in absolute but 
in relative purity, long after they had vanished from the 
continent. The inevitable end came at last, and these 
churches also became Romanized; but it was not until 
the twelfth century that the papacy succeeded in estab- 
lishing, with tolerable completeness, its jurisdiction over 
the churches of Great Britain and Ireland. 1 

In the East, as well as in the West, the corrupted form 
of Christianity did not become supreme without a strenu- 
ous and long-continued resistance on the part of a more 
evangelical religion. This was especially true of the 

1 For a fuller discussion of Patrick and his work see " Ancient British 
and Irish Churches," Rev. William Cathcart, d. d. Philadelphia, 1894. 
Also, Bury, " Life of St. Patrick and his Place in History." New York, 
1905. 



THE ECLIPSE OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY 75 

region now known as Bulgaria. From the fourth century 
onward we find a group of sects in various parts of 
Europe, having a practical continuity of belief, if not a 
demonstrable historic connection. They are variously 
known as Paulicians, Cathari, Albigenses, Bogomils, and 
by half a score of other names. These sects have one 
fundamental doctrine in common, derived from the Mani- 
chaeans. Manichseism is not properly a form of Christi- 
anity, but a distinct religion, as distinct as Mohammedan- 
ism. It originated in Persia, about a. d. 250, in the teach- 
ings of Mani. Its distinctive feature is a theodicy, rather 
than a theology, an explanation of the moral phenomena 
of the universe by the hypothesis of the eternal existence 
of two mutually exclusive principles or forces, one good, 
and the other evil. These forces, conceived as personal, 
and corresponding to the God and Satan of the Christian 
theology, are in everlasting conflict, and neither can ever 
overcome the other. In Manichseism the good spirit was 
represented as the creator of the world, but his work was 
vitiated by the agency of the evil spirit, which introduced 
sin and death. 

The Paulicians, accepting this dualistic system, taught 
that the world is the creation of the evil spirit, not of the 
good. Manichseism, as it advanced from Persia through 
the Roman empire, came into contact with Christianity, 
and borrowed from it some of the latter's features that 
lent themselves most easily to such grafting, but it was 
essentially an alien religion, and not a Christian heresy. 

The Bogomils are a typical form of this party, more 
Christian and less Manichsean than some others, and es- 
pecially interesting because they survived all persecutions 
down to the Reformation period. Various explanations 
have been given of the name ; some say it means " friends 
of God"; others trace the party to a Bulgarian bishop 
named Bogomil, who lived about the middle of the tenth 



j6 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

century. What is certain is that the thing is older than 
the name ; that the party or denomination called Bogomils 
existed long before this title was given to them. They 
represented through the medieval period, as compared 
with Rome, the purer apostolic faith and practice, though 
mixed with some grotesque notions and a few serious 
errors. 

It ought always to be borne in mind, however, that for 
the larger part of our information regarding those stig- 
matized as heretics we are indebted, not to their own 
writings, but to the works of their opponents. Only the 
titles remain of the bulk of heretical writings, and of the 
rest we have, for the most part, only such quotations as 
prejudiced opponents have chosen to make. That these 
quotations fairly represent the originals would be too 
much to assume. With respect to the Bogomils, our 
knowledge is exclusively gained from their bitter enemies 
and persecutors. All such testimony is to be received 
with suspicion, and should be scrupulously weighed and 
sifted before we accept it. Where these prejudiced op- 
ponents did not knowingly misstate the beliefs of " here- 
tics," they often quite misunderstood them, viewing these 
beliefs as they did through the distorting lenses of Roman 
or Greek Catholicism. 

We get our chief information about Bogomil doctrine 
from the writings of one Euthymius, a Byzantine monk 
who died in 1118, who wrote a learned refutation of these 
and other " heresies " of his time. His account is gen- 
erally accepted by historians as substantially correct — a 
most uncritical conclusion. The Bogomil theology as set 
forth by Euthymius was a fantastic travesty of the gospel, 
with marked Manichsean elements. God had two sons, 
the elder of whom, called Satanael, was chief among the 
hosts of heaven and created the material universe. In 
consequence of his ambition and rebellion he was driven 



THE ECLIPSE OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY 77 

from heaven with his supporters among the angelic hosts. 
Then God bestowed power on his younger son, Jesus, 
who breathed the breath of life into man and he became 
a living soul. Thenceforth there was constant conflict be- 
tween Satanael and Jesus, but the former met with signal 
defeat in the resurrection of Jesus, and is destined ulti- 
mately to complete overthrow. There are also traces of 
the docetic heresy in the theology of the Bogomils; they 
were said to deny that Jesus took real flesh upon himself, 
but believed his body to be spiritual. 

Euthymius charges the Bogomils with rejecting pretty 
much everything believed by other Christians. They did 
not accept the Mosaic wrtings as part of the word of 
God, though they did accept the Psalms and New Testa- 
ment; they rejected water-baptism, like the modern 
Quakers ; they declared the Lord's Supper to be the sacri- 
fice of demons, and would have none of it ; they thought 
churches the dwelling-places of demons, and the worship 
of the images in them to be mere idolatry ; the fathers of 
the church they declared to be the false prophets against 
whom Jesus gave warning ; they forbade marriage and the 
eating of flesh, and fasted thrice a week. 

Some of these charges clearly appear to be misap- 
prehensions. Trine-immersion, the doctrine of baptismal 
regeneration and infant baptism, were taught by the 
Catholic Church. Denial of these may have been taken 
by prejudiced prelates to be denial of baptism itself. 
There is evidence that the Bogomils practised the single 
immersion of adult believers. No doubt they did call the 
mass " the sacrifice of demons," or something to that 
effect ; but only to a bigoted and ignorant Catholic would 
that imply rejection of the Lord's Supper, scripturally 
celebrated. 

The chief peculiarity of the Bogomils is said to have 
been the division of their members into two classes : the 



78 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

credentes, or believers, and the perfecti, or pure ones — a 
division characteristic of Manichsean sects generally, as 
well as corresponding to the " novices " and " adepts " 
of many orders and societies. Before admission among 
the perfecti one must have passed a period of probation 
and received the consolamentum, or rite of initiation, by 
the laying on of hands. The perfecti were celibates- 
women were admitted to this rank — and lived an ascetic 
life, devoting themselves to the preaching of the gospel 
and charitable works. It does not appear that mar- 
riage was forbdden to the credentes. The perfecti re- 
ceived the title of " elders," and were preachers to and 
pastors of the congregations, as well as missionaries and 
evangelists. There was a total absence of a hierarchy 
among them. It is charged against them that they held 
the perfecti to be above the lav/ and incapable of sin — 
the same error of antinomianism into which some 
Calvinists, Baptists among them, fell later. 

The most prominent man among the Bogomils toward 
the close of the eleventh century was a venerable phy- 
sician named Basil. He is sometimes described as their 
" bishop " ; he was really one of the " elders " or perfecti, 
and his preeminence was due to his learning and char- 
acter, not to his official rank. The emperor Alexander 
Comnenus I., was a bitter persecutor. He did not hesi- 
tate to lay a trap for Basil by inviting him to the imperial 
table and cabinet, and by pretending a deep interest in 
the Bogomil's views drew from his victim a full expo- 
sition of them. A scribe hidden behind tapestries took 
it all down, and then the perfidious emperor arrested his 
venerable guest and put him in prison. Basil was con- 
demned and burned at the stake, to the last steadfast in 
his faith and meeting his cruel death with unfaltering 
trust in Christ. No charge was or could be brought 
against him, but his " heresy." To the elevation of his 



THE ECLIPSE OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY 79 

character and his life of good works even the daughter 
of the emperor, who recorded her father's shame, bore 
unwilling witness. We learn from her also that many 
families of the highest rank had embraced the Bogomil 
doctrines. At the height of their prosperity the cre- 
dentes are said to have numbered two millions, and the 
perfecti perhaps four thousand. 

Through the early medieval times, therefore, down 
to the eleventh century, we find evangelical Christianity 
suppressed with virtual completeness throughout Europe. 
Even those forms of Christianity that may, in comparison 
with Rome, be called evangelical are far from bearing 
a close resemblance to the doctrine and practice of the 
apostles. No other conclusion can be drawn from a 
careful and impartial survey of all the evidence. 



CHAPTER VII 

FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAWN 

WHEN Hildebrand became Pope Gregory VIL, in 
the eleventh century, the papacy reached a 
height of pretensions and power of which the earlier 
pontiffs had scarcely dreamed. His predecessors had 
claimed supremacy in the church; it remained for him 
to claim universal supremacy, not merely the guidance 
of all believers in spiritual affairs, but a moral super- 
intendence of the nations. Temporal interests are con- 
fessedly inferior to spiritual ; in claiming spiritual su- 
premacy, therefore, Hildebrand held that supremacy in 
temporal affairs was included. Adopting the principles 
of feudalism, the papacy henceforth declared that all 
princes and monarchs held their dominions as feofs of 
the church. This theory the papacy has never since dis- 
claimed. It is a right in abeyance, and it will be revived 
and reasserted whenever in the future a pope judges 
himself tc^be able to enforce the claim. Claims so ex- 
travagant produced revolts, both political and religious; 
some of these revolts partook of both characters to such 
an extent that it is difficult to class them. They failed, 
it is true, for the times were not yet ripe for thorough 
reformation of the Church or State, but they were fore- 
gleams of the dawn that was to break over Europe in the 
sixteenth century. 

About the year 1130 a young priest began to attract 

much attention by his preaching in Brescia, one of the 

free cities of Northern Italy, and soon all Lombardy was 

stirred. He was a native of that city, and we first hear 

80 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAWN 8l 

of him as a lector in the church there. Then he studied 
in Paris under Abelard, who was already more than 
suspected of heresy, and not without reason. The Ro- 
man Church was not unjust, from its own point of 
view, in its subsequent condemnation of Abelard; for, 
whether he were himself in strictness a heretic, he was 
certainly the cause of heresy in others. The most seri- 
ous revolts of the twelfth century against the church 
are directly traceable to his lecture room. 

Abelard's instructions had opened Arnold's eyes, 
broadened his mind, and sent him to the Scriptures. The 
result was a deepening of his spiritual life, and disgust 
with the corrupt state of the church in Italy. He became 
a reformer, and with fiery eloquence exhorted men to re- 
pent and live according to the precepts of Christ. He 
boldly attacked and unsparingly denounced the vices of 
the clergy, their luxury and debauchery. From study of 
the Scriptures he had imbibed the notion of a holy and 
pure church, and he labored incessantly to restore the 
church as he found it to the pattern of apostolic times. 
This was the foundation of all his teachings — the ne- 
cessity of a spiritual church, composed of true believers 
living in daily conformity to the teachings of Christ. 

This was closely coupled with another principle, which, 
as we have seen, is a necessary corollary from this funda- 
mental teaching of the Scriptures : the complete separa- 
tion of church and State. The root of the evils that 
beset the Church Arnold found in its wealth; and its 
wealth was the result of an unholy alliance with the civil 
power. Therefore he demanded that the clergy of his 
day should imitate the apostles — renounce their worldly 
possessions and privileges, give up secular business, and 
set all men an example of holy living and apostolic sim- 
plicity. He was himself self-denying to the verge of 
asceticism, living a life of voluntary poverty and celibacy. 



&2 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The clergy, he taught, should not depend on tithes, but 
accept for their support the voluntary offerings of their 
people; and he conformed to his own teaching. 

It does not appear that Arnold attacked directly either 
the organization or the doctrine of the church, at least, 
during this period of his life. His mind was severely 
practical. Abelard had given him a strong spiritual im- 
pulse, without imparting to his pupil any of his own 
genius for speculation. Arnold was no theologian, but 
a man full of zeal for a reformation of the church in 
its life, rather than in its doctrine and organization. Ac- 
cordingly he was not charged with heresy, but with being 
a disturber of the church. His bishop laid the matter be- 
fore the Second Lateran council in 1139, and he was con- 
demned, banished from Brescia, and forbidden to preach. 
He is said to have bound himself by an oath to obey, 
but it seems certain that the terms were limited, for he 
is not charged with breaking it in what he afterward did. 

Banished from Brescia, Arnold went to France and 
joined his teacher, Abelard, then at the height of his con- 
troversy with St. Bernard. He zealously defended Abe- 
lard, and shared with him the condemnation of the synod 
of Sens, in 1140. His stay in France was but a few 
months; he then found refuge in Switzerland, but Ber- 
nard pursued him from place to place with the implacable 
hatred of the religious zealot who is also a good man. 

Arnold went to Rome after the death of Pope Inno- 
cent II., to whom (according to Bernard) he had sworn 
submission, and about 1145 began to preach there. His 
views had meanwhile undergone a great alteration. He 
still preached reform, but now it was a political reform, 
not a spiritual. This may have been, in part, because 
he found that the Romans had no affinity for his spiritual 
teachings ; but there was a change in his whole spirit and 
aim that can only partially be explained in this way. 







Page 82 



Statue of Arnold 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAWN 83 

In his view the State should be, not the empire at that 
time regarded as the ideal earthly government, but a pure 
republican democracy. Every city, he taught, should 
constitute an independent State, in whose government no 
bishop ought to have the right to interfere; the church 
should not own any secular dominion, and priests should 
be excluded from every temporal authority. This teach- 
ing differed totally from the then prevailing notion of a 
universal sacerdotium and imperium, the one ruling 
spiritual affairs, the other temporal, the civil ruler receiv- 
ing his authority from the spiritual, and in turn protecting 
the latter with his sword and enforcing its decrees. 

Under the leadership of Arnold the Roman people de- 
nied the pope's supremacy in temporal affairs, and com- 
pelled him to withdraw from the city. The people, and 
Arnold himself, cherished wild dreams of the restoration 
of ancient splendor and power, when the Roman Senate 
and people should again rule the world. Attempts were 
made to realize this dream of a new republic, but it was 
soon rudely shattered. Pope Adrian IV., from his exile 
at Orvieto, aimed a blow at Arnold and his nascent re- 
public that proved fatal — he laid the interdict on the city 
and put the leader under the ban. The blow was all the 
more effective in that nobody could charge the pope with 
exceeding his spiritual functions. It is hard for us to 
realize in this day what the interdict meant to a people 
who still believed that salvation was assured only in the 
church, by means of sacraments administered by a duly 
qualified priesthood. The doors of all churches were 
closed; no mass was said; the living could not be joined 
in marriage or shriven of their sins ; the dead could be 
buried only as one would bury a dog, with no priest to 
say a prayer for him. In addition, when Arnold was 
put under the ban, anybody who gave him shelter or food 
thereby made himself liable to the severest censures of the 



84 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

church. The interdict was too much for human nature 
to endure. By this terrible weapon, when all other 
means failed them, the medieval popes again and again 
brought the proudest monarchs of Europe to their knees, 
to sue for pardon and absolution. 

When the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was per- 
suaded by the pope to undertake his cause and entered 
Italy, he found it easy to procure Arnold's expulsion 
from Rome. The fallen leader received protection for a 
time among the nobility, but he was finally delivered up 
to the pope, and the prefect of Rome hanged him, 
burned his body and scattered the ashes in the Tiber. 
Thus perished one of Italy's noblest martyrs, and with 
his death ended the first struggle for reform of the 
church. 

Arnold has been claimed as a Baptist; but he is also 
claimed by others as belonging to them — indeed, two of 
his latest biographers are Roman Catholics, who hold 
that he taught nothing inconsistent with the Catholic doc- 
trine of his day, and was never condemned as a heretic. 
His supposed affinity with Baptists has little evidence in 
its favor save the statement made by Otto of Freisingen, 
a contemporary historian, " He is said to have had un- 
sound notions (non sane dicitnr sensisse) regarding the 
sacrament of the altar and the baptism of children." 
This is given as a report merely; Bishop Otto, who says 
everything unfavorable about Arnold that he can de- 
vise, does not venture to state this positively. The only 
other scrap of evidence that seems to connect him with 
Baptists is the statement, apparently handed on from 
writer to writer without re-investigation, that he was 
condemned by the Lateran Council for his rejection of 
infant baptism. The Second Lateran Council (1139) 
condemned all who rejected " the sacrament of the body 
and blood of the Lord, the baptism of children, priest- 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAWN 85 

hood and other ecclesiastical orders, and the bonds of 
lawful marriage," but nobody is mentioned by name. 
Some historians infer that this was a condemnation of 
Arnold, but that begs the very question at issue, namely, 
how many and which of these errors he taught. 

Nobody has summed up the work of Arnold, and in- 
dicated its significance, with more eloquence and insight 
than Bishop Hurst: 

To study the career of Arnold and its unhappy end one 
would conclude that it was simply a revolutionary episode in the 
turbulent age in which he lived. But we must take a broader 
view. He greatly weakened the confidence of the people in the 
strength of the papacy. He proved that it was possible for one 
man, endowed with energy, to overthrow, at least for a time, the 
temporal sovereignty of popes, introduce a new political life in 
Rome itself, and mass the people to support his views. His most 
bitter enemies could not find any flaw in his moral character. 
His purity of life was in perfect harmony with the gospel which 
he preached. His personal worth, and the temporary changes 
which he wrought, were the great forces which continued to 
work long after his martyrdom. In every later effort for re- 
form, and even in the Reformation in Germany and other coun- 
tries, the name of Arnold of Brescia was a mighty factor in aid- 
ing towards the breaking of the old bonds. Even in these latest 
times it has its historical value, for in the struggle of the Prot- 
estantism of New Italy for mastery over the thought of the 
people, that name is a comfort to all who are endeavoring to 
bring in the new and better day, from the Alps down to Sicily. 1 

It was three centuries before Italy saw another serious 
attempt to purify the church, and in the meantime the 
papacy had lost much of its political power and descended 
to the lowest depths of degradation. All that ancient 
historians have related of the horrible crimes of Nero 
and other emperors of Rome, and much besides, may 
be truthfully told of Alexander VI., the father of Caesar 
and Lucretia Borgia. His wickedness was colossal, sim- 

1 " Short History of the Christian Church," p. 152. 



86 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ony and murder being the least of his sins, and the worst 
unnamable. Under him and his immediate predecessors 
the corruption of the church became frightful; if there 
were not the fullest proof of the facts they would be 
incredible. A man who had murdered his two daughters 
was duly condemned to death, but on the very morning of 
his execution was set at liberty for the payment of eight 
hundred ducats. A high official of the papal court calmly 
remarked : " God willeth not the death of a sinner, but 
that he shall pay and live." In the monasteries, what 
could be expected but notorious and almost universal un- 
faithfulness to their vows of poverty and chastity? 
Among the secular clergy the case was little better. Of 
course there were devout and faithful souls in the midst 
of all this wickedness, as there have been in every age 
of the church, but the fifteenth century was a sink of 
corruption. The moral tone of Christendom was never 
lower. The rulers were despotic, cruel, oppressive; the 
people were brutally selfish; both were dissolute and 
knavish. Such is the picture of the times drawn by con- 
temporary writers, loyal sons of the church. Nothing 
but a root-and-branch reformation could save church 
and society from utter dissolution. Was such a reforma- 
tion — revolution rather — possible? If so, could it proceed 
from within? 

About the time Columbus was setting forth on his first 
voyage to America the people of Florence discovered that 
a young Dominican monk in their city was one of the 
great preachers of the age. Girolamo Savonarola was 
born in Ferrara in 1452, of noble descent, and was 
destined by his parents for the profession of medicine. 
In his twenty-third year, becoming greatly anxious about 
his soul, he forsook his home and entered a Dominican 
monastery — an experience almost exactly duplicated by 
Luther a generation later. He became an ardent student 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAWN 87 

of the Scriptures, of which he is said to have committed 
nearly the whole to memory. He was a man of some- 
what gloomy, melancholy nature, given to fasts and 
vigils, ascetic in life, and in manner like one of the old 
prophets. When he first began to preach his success was 
meager, but suddenly at Brescia he preached as if a 
new inspiration had come upon him; and from the time 
he went to Florence (1490) he attracted multitudes. His 
favorite theme was the exposition of the apocalypse, and 
in that book he found ample materials for heart-searching 
sermons, laden with fierce denunciations of the sins of 
the age. Savonarola began, as so many had begun be- 
fore him, as Luther was to begin later, with an idea 
simply of the moral regeneration of the church. He im- 
agined that the rottenness of the church and society about 
him could be cured by preaching, that the mere proclama- 
tion of the truth was enough. He soon came to see, 
however, that the evils he denounced were inseparably 
bound up with the political system of his age, and his 
efforts at reformation took a political turn. 

For a time the eloquence of Savonarola seemed to 
carry all before it. Lorenzo di Medici died, and his in- 
competent son, Pietro, was soon driven from the city. 
The government was reorganized on a theocratic basis, 
with Savonarola as the vicegerent of God. The golden 
age appeared to have returned to Florence, and, as a 
contemporary writer said, "the people seemed to have 
become fools from mere love of Christ." Emboldened 
by his success, Savonarola attacked the papacy, in which 
he rightly saw the chief source of the evils of the age. 
Alexander VI. sought to buy his silence with the arch- 
bishopric of Florence and a cardinal's hat, and failed. 
Then the pope accepted the issue Savonarola had forced 
upon him, and it became a life and death struggle 
between these two, 



<55 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Alexander first summoned the daring preacher to 
Rome to answer for his alleged errors, but he was not 
silly enough to comply. He was then forbidden to 
preach for a time, and respected the prohibition until it 
was removed. The old jealousy between the Franciscans 
and Dominicans, however, broke out afresh, and this 
quarrel was skilfully used by the pope to cause Savo- 
narola's downfall. Alexander excommunicated his an- 
tagonist in May, 1497, and later threatened to lay the 
interdict upon the city if it did not surrender its favorite 
preacher. But Florence stood by him, and might have 
continued to do so, though it was wavering, had it not 
been for an error of Savonarola's that was fatal to his 
cause. A Franciscan preacher denounced him as a here- 
tic, and challenged the reformer to undergo with him the 
ordeal by fire. Savonarola did not approve of the or- 
deal, and refused it for himself, but the pressure of opin- 
ion induced him to permit one of his followers to accept 
the challenge. It was a fatal move. The pyres were 
lighted, and all Florence had assembled to see the trial. 
The Franciscans managed to get up a bitter quarrel with 
the Dominicans over the question whether the cross or 
the host was to be carried through the flames ; and while 
they contended a rainstorm came on and put out the 
fires. The people, disappointed of their expected spec- 
tacle, with the usual fickleness of the mob, visited all their 
displeasure upon Savonarola, and from that day his in- 
fluence declined so rapidly that he soon fell into the 
power of Alexander's agents. Under torture he was 
said to have confessed everything that his enemies de- 
sired, but the reports are so garbled as to be utterly un- 
worthy of trust ; and it is certain that afterward he re- 
tracted all that he had confessed. Not even torture and 
garbling could make him out a heretic or guilty of any 
capital offense, and he was finally condemned in defiance 




> I tl'Hn-T'ONVIvil-rERI-JARIENSSv* 






•' i-iiSSPPROPHET^EFFIGltS^ 



Page 



Savonarola 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAWN 89 

of both law and justice. He was first hanged and then 
burned, with two of his chief adherents, " in order that," 
so ran the sentence, " their souls may be entirely sep- 
arated from their bodies." The sentence was duly exe- 
cuted, in the presence of a vast multitude. Savonarola 
bore himself with composure and fortitude, and his last 
words were, " O Florence, what hast thou done to-day ? " 
What, indeed! Nothing but postpone for almost four 
centuries Italy's deliverance from the papal yoke. 

Few men have been more variously estimated than 
Savonarola. By one party he has been represented as 
an inspired prophet, a saint, a miracle-worker ; by another 
as ambitious, fanatical, even hypocritical. By one he is 
called a patriot, by another a demagogue. He was not 
a heretic ; to the last he believed in all the dogmas of the 
Roman Catholic Church. Rome never condemned his 
teachings as heresy, and though he has not yet been 
canonized, there is no obstacle to his canonization at any 
time, as his admirers in the church, in increasing num- 
bers, demand. He resisted the pope politically, but ac- 
knowledged him as the head of the church. Neverthe- 
less, he had adopted principles that, if they had been 
given an opportunity to work themselves out, would have 
compelled his separation from Rome. The pope was 
wiser in his generation than the reformer. 

The next serious revolt against the papal supremacy 
was in Bohemia. Early in the fifteenth century, that 
kingdom was greatly stirred by the preaching of a Czech 
scholar. John Hus (so he wrote the name, it being an 
abbreviation of Hussinetz) was educated at the Uni- 
versity of Prag, and after taking his Master's degree in 
1396, began to lecture, with such success that in 1401 
he was made dean of the philosophical faculty, and in 
1403 rector of the university. In 1402 he was also made 
pastor of the Bethlehem Chapel, where he preached in 



90 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the Czech language. He was a diligent student of the 
Scriptures, but his theology was not mainly derived from 
that source — or, rather, the writings of another had first 
opened his eyes to the meaning of Scripture. 

In the middle of the fourteenth century a professor at 
Oxford had attracted much attention by the boldness and 
novelty of his teaching. John Wiclif was a Protestant 
before Protestantism, condemning and opposing in his 
writings nearly every distinctive doctrine of Rome — a 
man far more radical than Luther, though less violent 
in his manner of utterance. Among his plain teachings, 
all of which proceeded from the root-principle of the su- 
preme authority of the Scriptures, were these: No writ- 
ing, not even a papal decree, has any authority, save as 
it is founded on the Scriptures ; transubstantiation is not 
taught in the Bible, but by the popes; in the primitive 
church there were but two orders in the ministry, bishops 
and deacons; there is not good scriptural warrant for 
confirmation and extreme unction; the clergy should not 
interfere in civil affairs. In addition to this already long 
list of heresies, Wiclif opposed the doctrine of indul- 
gences, the mendicant orders and monks of all sorts, the 
use of images and pictures in churches, canonization, pil- 
grimages, auricular confession, and celibacy of the 
clergy ! But though he disowned and combated every 
distinctive feature in the Roman Church of his day, 
Wiclif was not condemned, and at length died peace- 
fully in his bed. This was due partly to his distance 
from Rome, and partly to the powerful protection he re- 
ceived from English kings and nobles. His followers 
(Lollards) were severely persecuted, but not extermi- 
nated, and his teachings prepared England for a subse- 
quent reformation. Especially did his translation of the 
Scriptures, which was widely circulated, leave an indelible 
impression on the English mind and character. 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAWN 9 1 

Hus adopted nearly all of Wiclif's views, and may 
fairly be called the disciple and follower of the great 
English reformer. It need not surprise us that Wiclif's 
doctrines thus found an acceptance in Bohemia hardly 
obtained in England. His writings were chiefly in Latin, 
then the common language of educated men everywhere ; 
so that ideas then passed from England to Bohemia far 
more easily than they do in the twentieth century. It 
was, moreover, . the custom of medieval students to mi- 
grate from university to university, in order to hear some 
renowned lecturer; and students from Oxford brought 
Wiclif's writings to Prag and made them known to Hus. 
But though a disciple, Hus was more than a mere echo of 
Wiclif. He was content to follow where Wiclif led the 
way — possibly because Wiclif's was the stronger, more 
independent, more original mind — but he had gifts of elo- 
quence that his master seems never to have possessed. 
Wiclif was the scholar, the teacher, the retiring thinker, 
while Hus was not merely scholar and teacher, but 
apostle. 

At first Hus undoubtedly believed in the possibility of 
reforming the church from within. He had apparently 
the confidence of his ecclesiastical superiors, and hoped 
to accomplish great things. Not only did he industri- 
ously spread abroad the doctrines of Wiclif, but as a syn- 
odical preacher he exposed and denounced the sins of the 
clergy with great faithfulness. Appointed to investigate 
some of the alleged miracles of the church, he did not 
hesitate to pronounce them spurious — and he bade all 
believers cease looking for signs and miracles and search 
the Scriptures. In 1409, the pope forbade the use of 
Wiclif's writings, which precipitated a conflict between 
Hus and his archbishop, the latter burning Wiclif's books 
wherever he could find them, and Hus continuing to 
preach with increasing boldness. In March, 141 1, he 



92 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

was excommunicated by the archbishop and Prag was 
laid under the interdict, but Hus had the university and 
the city with him so completely that no attention was 
paid to the sentences. Hus and his sympathizers now 
went much further; they declared that neither pope nor 
bishop has the right to draw the sword ; that indulgences 
are worthless, since not money but true repentance is the 
condition of forgiveness; that the doctrine of the pope's 
infallibility is blasphemous. 

This was one of the questions that the Council of 
Constance was expected to decide, and Hus had agreed 
to submit himself and his teachings to the decision of a 
general council. When the body met, in November, 
1414, great things in the way of reform were expected 
from it, and at first it seemed likely to realize at least a 
part of the expectations. Pope John XXIII. , one of the 
worst scoundrels that ever disgraced the See of Rome — 
and that is saying much — was deposed, and committees 
were considering carefully liberal propositions concern- 
ing the improvement of the church constitution, the ref- 
ormation of abuses and extortions, and the eradication 
of simony. The future of the church turned on one 
point ; whether the reformation or the election of a pope 
should first be set about. The great mistake was made 
of electing a pope first, and when Martin V. found him- 
self in the papal chair, he was astute enough to frustrate 
all attempts at reform and bring the council to a close 
with nothing accomplished. The abuses for which re- 
form was demanded were the very sources from which 
pope and cardinals drew the greater part of their reve- 
nues; and it was absurd to expect reform under such 
circumstances if they were able to prevent it. The sequel 
proved that they were able. 

One of the things to which the Council of Constance 
speedily devoted its attention was the agitation in 



FOREGLEAMS OF THE DAWN 93 

Bohemia, which had now become a matter of European 
notoriety. Hus had never denied, but rather affirmed, the 
authority of an ecumenical council. King Sigismund, of 
Hungary (who was also the emperor), summoned Hus to 
appear before the council and gave the reformer a safe 
conduct. In June, 141 5, he had his first public hearing, 
and two other hearings followed ; in all of them he stood 
manfully by his teachings and defended them as in ac- 
cord with Scripture. - During the rest of the month fre- 
quent attempts were made to induce him to retract, but 
he stood firmly by his faith. On July 6th condemnation 
was finally pronounced, and it is said that, on this oc- 
casion, the emperor had the grace actually to blush when 
reminded of the safe conduct he had given. Hus was 
then publicly degraded from the priesthood with every 
mark of ignominy, and delivered, with Rome's customary 
hypocrisy, to the civil power for execution. Thus the 
church could say that she never put heretics to death ! 
When being tied to the stake he preached and exhorted 
until the fire was kindled, when he began singing with a 
loud voice, " Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy on 
me." This he continued until his voice was stifled by 
smoke and flame, but his lips were seen to move for a 
long time, as in prayer. When his body was consumed, 
the ashes were cast into the Rhine, that the earth might 
no more be polluted by him. 

Never was it more clearly demonstrated that the blood 
of the martyrs is in the seed of the church. The legiti- 
mate development of Hus' teachings was not through the 
so-called Hussites, but through the Unitas Fratum, an- 
ciently known as the Bohemian Brethren, and in later 
times as Moravians. Their organization began in a se- 
cktdexLnook in Bohemia in 1457. The principles of Hus 
were avowed in their confessions, and their growth was 
rapid. By the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation 



94 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

they numbered four hundred parishes, with two hundred 
thousand members, but by persecution and absorption they 
almost disappeared. A remnant, however, was preserved, 
a " hidden seed," and the order of bishops, originally de- 
rived from the Waldensians, was continued in secret but 
regular succession. Finally the survivors settled, in 1722, 
and the following seven years, on the estate of Count 
Zinzendorf, in Saxony, and there built a town called 
Herrnhut (" watch of the Lord"). March 13, 1735, 
David Nitschmann was consecrated the first bishop of 
this revived Moravian Church, and a new era in its his- 
tory began. Few things in the history of Christianity are 
more full of romance and of encouragement to faith than 
this story of the Moravians, their providential preserva- 
tion for over a century, after their existence was sup- 
posed to be ended, and their almost miraculous emergence 
into a new life, to become the leaders of Christendom in 
missionary enterprise. 

How came it about that not only these attempts at 
reform, but others that are still to be recounted, failed ? — 
failed in spite of being founded on the Scriptures and 
having the favor of the people. To tell that story is the 
object of the next chapter. 




Page 94 



Savonarola 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE WRATH OF THE DRAGON 

UNTIL Christianity conquered the Caesars and be- 
came the religion of the Roman State, it had 
been often persecuted, but never a persecutor. As if to 
show that this was merely because it had lacked the 
power, as if to prove that in this respect the religion of 
the Christ was no better than the religions of the gods 
that it displaced, the Holy Catholic Church almost im- 
mediately began to persecute, thereby affording a con- 
vincing demonstration that it was neither catholic nor 
holy. Indeed, persecution was an inevitable consequence 
of the union of Church and State under Constantine ; no 
other result could reasonably have been looked for, with 
the confusion of civil and ecclesiastical rights that 
followed the promotion of Christianity to be a State 
religion. 

Let us strive to be just to Constantine, while true to 
the facts of history. Let us remember that he was of 
heathen birth and training ; that he was never a Christian, 
in any proper sense of the term; that he delayed his 
baptism until his death-bed, in the vain hope of thus wash- 
ing away all his sins at one fell swoop, and entering the 
new life regenerate and holy; that during his lifetime he 
never quite learned the difference between Christianity 
and heathenism, or that there was any fundamental differ- 
ence. How, indeed, should he suspect such a thing, in 
view of the conduct and doctrines of the churchmen of 
his day? Let us remember, furthermore, that as Im- 
perator Constantine was Pontifex Maximus of the old 
95 



96 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

religion, and that he naturally imported into his 
newly professed faith this same idea of imperial headship. 

And finally, let us take his point of view. Constantine 
was not a religious man, but he was a statesman, the 
greatest of the Caesars after the greater Julius. He saw 
in Christianity a marvelous force of conviction that had 
made it triumph over the most cruel and persistent perse- 
cutions. He saw in the church, spread throughout the 
Roman empire, the greatest unifying agency of his day, 
a society of men bound together in a solidarity to which 
no other institution could compare. Upon his mind 
broke the truth that here he had an instrument ready 
to his hand by which he might consolidate his empire as 
no predecessor had been able to do — that the civil ma- 
chinery might be duplicated by the ecclesiastical in every 
province and town of his domains. A beautiful dream, 
do you say ? But Constantine made it real, and by doing 
it proved himself one of the great creative statesmen 
of the world — a man who ranks with Caesar and 
Charlemagne and Napoleon. 

But it was essential to the realization of this dream 
that the church should remain a unit. Heresy and 
schism could not be tolerated, and accordingly Constan- 
tine did not tolerate them. He persecuted, not as a 
bigot, but as a ruler; not for religious, but for civil rea- 
sons. At first he personally inclined towards Arius and 
his followers, but he saw that the orthodox doctrine 
would finally prevail in the church. He had no narrow 
prejudices about such matters — orthodoxy and heresy 
were all one 10 him — so he at once became the supporter 
of orthodoxy and threw the whole weight of the imperial 
power into the scale at the Council of Nice to secure a 
condemnation of Arianism and a definition of the doctrine 
of the Trinity as the only orthodox Christian teaching. 
He was successful, and then set himself the task of 



THE WRATH OF THE DRAGON 97 

persecuting the Arians out of existence ; and though some 
of his successors in part undid his work, his policy was 
crowned with ultimate success, a century or more after 
his death. 

Persecution therefore was introduced into the church 
of Christ by a man who seems in reality to have been a 
heathen, in accordance with a heathen theory of imperial 
functions, and for purposes of State. The Holy Cath- 
olic Church did not scruple to profit by the policy of 
Constantine and even to give him sly encouragement, 
but it did not at first dogmatically defend persecution. 
Indeed, the reputable Fathers of the Nicene Church 
shrank from the idea that one Christian should persecute 
another. So late as 385, when the Spanish bishop Pris- 
cillian and six of his adherents (accused of Manichaeism) 
were tortured and beheaded at the instigation of Ithacus, 
another bishop, Ambrose of Milan and Martin of Tours 
made a memorable protest against this perfidious act and 
broke off all communion with Ithacus. The church was 
not yet ripe for the proclamation of the doctrine that 
Christians were to slay one another for the glory of God. 

But a distinguished convert whom Ambrose baptized, 
Augustine of Hippo, did not shrink from giving a dog- 
matic basis to what had come to be the practice of the 
church, and even professed to find warrant for it in Scrip- 
ture. " It is, indeed, better that men should be brought 
to serve God by instruction than by fear of punishment, 
or by pain. But because the former means are better, 
the latter must not therefore be neglected. Many must 
often be brought back to their Lord, like wicked servants, 
by the rod of temporal suffering, before they attain the 
highest grade of religious development. . . The Lord 
himself orders that guests be first invited, then com- 
pelled, to his great supper." And Augustine argues that 
if the State has not the power to punish religious error, 

G 



98 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

neither should it punish a crime like murder. Rightly 
did Neander say of Augustine's teaching, that it " con- 
tains the germ of the whole system of spiritual despotism, 
intolerance, and persecution, even to the court of the 
Inquisition." Nor was it long before the final step was 
taken in the church doctrine of persecution. Leo the 
Great, the first of the popes, in a strict sense of that 
term, drew the logical inference from the premises al- 
ready provided for him by the Fathers of the church, 
when he declared that death is the appropriate penalty 
for heresy. 

Once more, let us be just: the Roman Church is right 
in this conclusion if we grant its first premise, that sal- 
vation depends not on personal faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, as a result of which or in connection with which 
the Holy Spirit regenerates the soul immediately, but 
is to be attained only through the church and its sacra- 
ments — baptism accomplishing the soul's regeneration, 
and this new life being nourished and preserved through 
the Eucharist and other sacraments. Granting this doc- 
trine of sacramental grace, not only is Rome justified in 
persecuting, but all who believe in sacramental grace are 
wrong not to persecute. For if salvation is impossible 
except through the church and its sacraments, every 
heretic is, as Rome charges, a murderer of souls. Is it 
not right to restrain and punish a murderer ? From this 
point of view it becomes the duty of the church to root 
out heresy at all cost of human life — to make the world 
a desert, if need be, but at any rate to ensure peace. And 
all persecutors have been half-hearted in the work ex- 
cept only Rome ; she has had the courage of her accursed 
convictions. She alone has recognized that if you say 
A you must say B, and so on, to the end of the alphabet ; 
that if you once begin to persecute you must not tremble 
at blood and tears, nor shrink from sending men to the 



THE WRATH OF THE DRAGON 99 

rack, the gibbet, and the stake. The Inquisition is the 
perfectly logical, the inevitable outcome of Roman doc- 
trine, and the entire system of persecution is rooted in 
this idea of sacramental grace. 

After the theory of persecution was thus fully de- 
veloped, it remained to put it consistently into practice. 
This the Roman Church was slow in doing, partly for 
lack of power, partly because the pressure of need was 
not strongly felt until the twelfth century. Toward the 
close of that century these causes of delay no longer ex- 
isted. During the pontificate of Innocent III. (1198- 
1216) the papacy rose to the zenith of its baleful au- 
thority. This greatest of all the popes, save Hildebrand, 
blasphemously appropriated to himself, as the pretended 
vicar of Christ, the words of the risen Jesus, " All power 
is given unto me in heaven and earth," and strove to 
realize them in Europe. To King John, of England, he 
said, " Jesus Christ wills that the kingdom should be 
priestly, and the priesthood kingly. Over all, he set me 
as his vicar upon earth, so that, as before Jesus ' every 
knee shall bow,' in like manner to his vicar all shall be 
obedient, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 
Pondering this truth, thou, as a secular prince, hast sub- 
jected thy realm to Him to whom all is spiritually sub- 
ject." This claim Innocent made good throughout the 
greater part of Europe, here by skilful diplomacy, there 
by aid of the sword, elsewhere by the spiritual censures 
of the church. He humbled the pride of the kings of 
France and Spain, made and unmade emperors, and com- 
pelled England's most despotic monarch to bow the 
knee, surrender his realms " to God and the pope," and 
receive them back as a feudatory. 

But while the pope was thus successfully asserting his 
claim to be supreme, the dispenser and withholder of all 
temporal sovereignty, the church was menaced by an 

Lore. 



IOO A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

internal danger that threatened not merely its supremacy, 
but its very existence. The twelfth century saw the be- 
ginning of that tremendous uprising of the human spirit, 
in its aspiration after greater freedom, which a few cen- 
turies later produced the Renaissance, the Reformation, 
and the Revolution. A reaction began against the des- 
potism that had so long bound the spirit of man in the 
fetters of absolute dogma. While the popes were tri- 
umphing over emperors and kings, heresy was undermin- 
ing the very foundations of the church. The teachings 
of Arnold, of Savonarola, of Hus, though more than 
once the church had believed these detested heresies 
finally extirpated, had showed an astonishing persistence 
and fruitfulness. The growth of these heretical sects 
was doubtless due in part to the simplicity and scriptural- 
ness of their teachings, but it is quite as much to be as- 
cribed to the scandalous lives and corrupt practices of 
the clergy. Men loathed a church in which the cure of 
souls, from parish priest to pope, was bought and sold as 
merchandise, when the highest ecclesiastics bartered bene- 
fices with almost as little secrecy and quite as little shame 
as a huckster displays in crying oranges or green peas 
in our streets. Men instinctively rejected the ministra- 
tions of priests known to be depraved in life, and more 
than suspected to be unbelievers in the saving sacraments 
they pretended to dispense. Language is inadequate to 
describe the iniquity of a system in which the very popes 
swore by the heathen gods and were atheists at heart, in 
which monastic institutions were brothels, in which the 
parish priests, though feared, were also hated and de- 
spised for their ignorance, their pride, their avarice, and 
their unclean lives. There is little danger that one who 
attempts to paint the manners and morals of the medi- 
eval clergy will overcharge his brush with dark color. 
Words that a self-respecting man can address to men who 




Page ioo 



Wiclif 



THE WRATH OF THE DRAGON IOI 

respect themselves are impotent to convey more than 
tame and feeble hints of that monstrous, that horrible, 
that unspeakable sink of iniquity, that abomination of 
putrescence, that quintessence of all infamies thinkable 
and unthinkable, known as the Holy Roman Catholic 
Church of the Middle Ages. 

In sharp contrast with such a church, these heretical 
teachers preached the simple faith and practice of the 
apostolic churches, and illustrated by the purity of their 
lives the beauty of the gospel they taught. True, their 
savage persecutors did not hesitate to charge upon these 
sects horrible immoralities, but these transparent cal- 
umnies never deceived anybody — unless we except a few 
modern historians who ardently desired to be deceived. 
What gave these heretics favor with the people was not 
vices, in which they might have rivaled, but could not 
hope to excel the priesthood, but virtues in which they 
had few competitors among the clergy. The common 
people of the Middle Ages were not much given to sub- 
tlety of reasoning, but they judged the two trees by their 
fruits. They looked at the church and beheld rapacity, 
oppression, wickedness, from highest to lowest in the 
hierarchy ; they looked at these heretical teachers and saw 
them to be such as Jesus was when upon earth — poor, 
humble, meek, pure, counting not life itself dear unto 
them if they might by any means win some. And by 
thousands and tens of thousands, men turned their backs 
upon such a church and accepted the teachings of such 
heretics. 

And these teachings were nothing less than revolution- 
ary. They denied that tradition has any authority, they 
flung aside as rubbish all the writings of the Fathers, all 
the decrees of councils, all the bulls of popes, and taught 
that only the Scriptures, and especially the Scriptures 
of the New Testament, are authoritative in questions of 



102 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

religion, whether of faith or of practice. They denied 
the efficacy of the sacraments, maintaining that that 
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is 
born of the Spirit is spirit; and therefore denying that 
an inward spiritual change can by any possibility be pro- 
duced by an outward physical act. They were Luther- 
ans before Luther, in teaching justification by faith and 
not by works; and more radical and consistent than 
Luther in accepting the legitimate consequences of 
their doctrine; for they rejected the baptism of infants 
as alike unwarranted by Scripture, and absurd in itself, if 
sacramental grace be denied. These are the distinctive 
teachings of Baptists to-day, and the men who held 
these truths from the twelfth century onward, under what 
various nicknames it pleased their persecutors to give 
them, were our spiritual ancestry, our brethren in the 
faith. 

But, alongside of these evangelical heresies of the 
twelfth century was another type of heresy, as wide- 
spread, as large in numbers, as threatening to the church, 
yet widely different in fundamental ideas. This was the 
sect known to the early church as Manichseans, one of 
the first forms of heresy and the most persistent of all, 
which under various names had endured from the age 
immediately succeeding the apostles. In the East they 
were long known as Paulicians, in Italy as the Paterines, 
in Bulgaria as Bogomils, in Southern France as Albi- 
genses, and in all these places as Cathari. This last was 
their own preferred name, and designated them as Puri- 
tans — or those who, both in doctrine and in life, were 
purer than the so-called Catholic Church. In this claim 
they were doubtless justified, for, although they are 
charged with gross immoralities, there is only too good 
reason to reject the testimony against them; and their 
doctrinal vagaries, opposed though they were to the 



THE WRATH OF THE DRAGON IO3 

gospel, were less gross than Rome's idolatrous worship of 
the saints, the Host, the images. 

Both classes of these heretics flourished during the 
twelfth century in Southern France. The church was 
not at all careful to distinguish between them, and they 
were often included under the name of Albigenses in 
one sweeping general condemnation. That name, how- 
ever, does not properly denote the evangelical heretics, 
who never confounded themselves with these dualistic 
heretics, and indeed sympathized with them as little as 
they did with Rome. But Rome hated both with an im- 
partial and undying hatred ; and good reason she had for 
her hatred, for toward the close of the twelfth century 
it became a life-and-death struggle between the church 
and these rapidly spreading heresies. In 1167 an Albi- 
gensian synod was held at Toulouse. Little is known of 
its proceedings, but the very fact that such an assemblage 
could be held shows how powerless the church had be- 
come in that region, and how imperative the need was, 
from the Roman point of view, for active and effectual 
measures of repression. Before this, recourse had been 
had to mild measures without effect. Bernard, one of 
the most eloquent men of his time, and a man of saintly 
character, had gone on a mission among them. He re- 
ports in his letters that the churches were deserted, the 
altars falling into decay, and the priests starving. He 
laments that the whole of Southern France seems given 
over to heresy, and no doubt his grief was genuine. 

In the year 12 15 Innocent III. summoned the Fourth 
Lateran Council. The power of the papacy was shown 
then as never before or since in the history of Europe. 
Emperors, kings, and princes sent plenipotentiaries as to 
the court of a more powerful monarch. The pope did 
not content himself with merely controlling the council; 
he dominated it. There was no pretense of debate. The 



104 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

pope prepared and handed down such decrees as he 
wished passed and the council obediently registered his 
will. Among the decrees thus incorporated into the 
canon law of the church were three relating to the treat- 
ment of heretics : first, that all rulers should be exhorted 
to tolerate no heretics in their domains; second, if a 
ruler refused to clear his land of heretics at the demand 
of the church, he should be deprived of his authority, his 
subjects should be released from their allegiance, and if 
necessary, he should be driven from his land by force; 
third, to every one who joined in an armed expedition 
against heretics the same indulgences and privileges 
should be granted as to crusaders. These are still the 
canon laws of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. They 
have never been repealed, and if they are not executed 
to-day it is because Rome lacks the power or thinks it 
not expedient to use it. The claim is there, ready to be 
exercised whenever in the opinion cf the infallible pontiff 
the right moment has arrived. And yet Roman priests 
in America would fain persuade us that Rome is really 
in favor of liberty and tolerance, that the leopard has 
changed his spots and the Ethiopian his skin. 

Raymond of Toulouse, sixth of the name, at the close 
of the twelfth century was the most powerful feudatory of 
France, almost an independent sovereign, allied by mar- 
riage and blood to the royal houses of Castile, Aragon, 
Navarre, France, and England. Most of his barons and 
the great majority of his people were heretics; and, 
though he was nominally loyal to the church, his indiffer- 
ence to the suppression of heresy was bitterly resented by 
the pope. After many warnings, he was excommuni- 
cated, and finally a crusade was declared against him. 
Leaders were found, first in Simon de Montfort, Earl of 
Leicester, and later in Louis of France; the power of 
Raymond was broken and the Albigenses were crushed. 



THE WRATH OF THE DRAGON IO5 

The war was carried on for twenty years ; town after 
town was captured; the inhabitants were massacred or 
sold into slavery. A large part of the most fertile region 
of France was left a smoking waste, without a green 
thing or a human being in sight. That is Romanism in 
its bright flower and full consummation : better desolation 
and death than heresy. 

But even then heresy was not suppressed — the snake 
was scotched, but not killed. The " crusaders " could not 
find and slay all the heretics, though they tried faith- 
fully to do it. Some fled to other parts, others dis- 
sembled or recanted and saved their lives. After the 
crusade was over, it was found that heresy persisted 
in secret, that the heroic remedies of fire and sword 
were not sufficiently drastic to accomplish the desired 
result. Organized and armed heresy had indeed ceased 
to show its head, but a mailed knight on horseback could 
not cope with secret heresy — that required the subtle in- 
genuity and devilish malignity of a priest. This neces- 
sity produced, by a natural evolution, the Holy Office 
of the Inquisition. (One notes in passing the tendency 
in the medieval church, wherever any institution or 
practice arose, more than usually satanic in spirit and 
administration, to dignify it by the epithet "holy.") 

There was already in existence a system of episcopal 
courts for the discovery and punishment of heresy. The 
effectiveness of these courts depended on the intelligence 
and energy of the bishop. Generally they were not very 
effective, since the bishop would usually await popular 
rumor or definite accusation before proceeding against 
any one. This regular church machinery having proved 
clumsy and ineffective, it remained to devise a better. 
Precedent for this already existed in a custom, dating 
from Charlemagne, of occasionally appointing papal com- 
missioners for a special emergency in a particular 



106 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

locality. It needed only to make such a commission per- 
manent and to enlarge the scope of its labors until it 
was co-extensive with the church. What the necessities 
of the time demanded was a continuous process against 
heresy directed by one mind. 

An institution peculiar to the medieval church nat- 
urally suggested the fitting agents for this work — the 
mendicant orders, scattered over the whole of Europe, 
not under the control of the bishops, independent of the 
secular clergy, responsible only to the pope. Accord- 
ingly, on April 20, 1233, Gregory IX. issued two bulls 
making the prosecution of heresy the special function of 
the Dominican order. From this time on the institution 
rapidly developed, and by the close of the thirteenth cen- 
tury had become the most terrible engine of oppression 
that the mind of man or devil ever conceived, before 
which kings on their thrones and prelates in their palaces 
trembled. Inquisitors could not be excommunicated 
while in the discharge of their duties, nor could any 
legate of the pope interfere with them or suspend them 
from office. While performing their duties they were 
freed from all obligations of obedience to their own 
generals, as well as to the bishops. Their jurisdiction 
was universal, and any one who refused obedience to 
their summons or opposed them became ipso facto 
excommunicated. 

What hope was there for one who, charged with 
heresy, fell into the clutches of judges such as this sys- 
tem provided? The arrest was usually secret; all that 
the friends of the accused ever knew, in most cases, was 
that he had disappeared. It was not considered con- 
ducive to health to make any open inquiries about his 
whereabouts ; it having been observed that such inquiries 
were followed by the disappearance of the too curious 
inquirer also. The accused was never permitted to have 



THE WRATH OF THE DRAGON IO7 

counsel; he was confronted by no accuser; he was not 
required to plead to any precise indictment. He could 
call no witnesses in defense; he was himself usually the 
chief witness for the prosecution — all principles of juris- 
prudence and all natural equity being set at naught by 
requiring him to testify against himself. Everything 
that human — no, everything that diabolical — ingenuity 
could do to entrap him into damaging admissions and to 
extract from him a confession of guilt was done. The 
inquisitor played on the conscience, on the affections, 
on the hopes and fears of his victim, with cynical dis- 
regard of every moral law and inflicting the most ex- 
quisite mental tortures, in the hope of securing a 
confession. 

Finally, if all other means failed, the inquisitors had 
another device for encouraging (such was their grim 
word) the accused to confess. That was physical tor- 
ture — the rack, the thumbscrew, the boot, cautery in vari- 
ous forms, every infernal machine that could be devised 
to produce the most excruciating agony without unduly 
maiming or killing. Sometimes solitary confinement in 
a dungeon was tried, as a means more effective than 
pain of breaking a stubborn will. Months lengthened 
into years and years into decades, and still the Inquisi- 
tion's victim might find himself unconvicted, but with 
no better prospect of liberty than on the first day. The 
Inquisition had all the time there was and was willing 
to wait ; its patience never wearied. If a prisoner's reso- 
lution gave way under torture or imprisonment, he had 
to sign a statement that his confession was not made 
because of love, fear or hatred of any one, but of his 
own free will. If he subsequently recanted, the confession 
was to be regarded as true, and the retraction as the 
perjury of an impenitent and relapsed heretic, who 
received condign punishment without further trial. 



108 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Though no effort was spared to obtain a written con- 
fession of heresy, the accused might in the last resort 
be condemned without it. Only in one way could he be 
certain of saving his life, and that was by a full con- 
fession at once, accompanied by a recantation of his er- 
rors and abject submission to the church. Then his life 
would be spared, but more likely than not it would be 
spent in some dungeon; only in rare cases was one who 
once fell into the clutches of the Inquisition suffered to 
return to his home and estate ; and in those rare cases he 
was subject to life-long espionage and harassment. 

When the process was completed and the accused was 
found guilty of heresy — which was the normal ending of 
a case — the inquisitors handed the heretic over to the 
civil power for punishment, with a hypocritical recom- 
mendation to mercy. But woe to the secular authority 
that heeded the recommendation ! If a magistrate failed 
for twelve months to put to death a condemned heretic, 
the refusal itself constituted heresy, and he became sub- 
ject to the kind offices of the Inquisition. Even if he 
were excommunicated, the magistrate must do his duty. 
The church, with characteristic evasion of the truth, 
claims to this day that it has never put a heretic to 
death. The claim is technically correct, if we except 
those who died in its dungeons and torture-chambers ; 
but the church coerced the civil power into becoming its 
executioner, and therefore its moral responsibility is the 
same. When the heretic was dead, the vengeance of the 
church was not sated. All his lands and goods were 
confiscated, his blood was attainted, his family were beg- 
gared, if they did not share his fate, and his name 
was blotted out of existence — life, property, titles, all 
disappeared. 

We must not think of the Inquisition as the instru- 
ment of wicked men solely, or even mainly, though its 




, ^ , r -:::- :>:r. :.. ":.-;a i;c,\ •' 






Page 



The Martyrdom of John Hus 



THE WRATH OF THE DRAGON 109 

satanic origin seems to be stamped all over it. But 
saintly Bernard was a more bitter persecutor than the 
infamous Borgias; Innocent III., the purest of the me- 
dieval popes, must be called the father of the Inqui- 
sition. In fact, the more pious a medieval Catholic was, 
the more he believed with all his heart and soul in the 
church and her sacraments, the more he was impelled to 
persecute. Such men hunted down heresy, not because 
they hated the heretic, but because they loved the souls 
of men, whose eternal salvation they believed to be en- 
dangered. It is an awful warning to all the succeeding 
ages of the fathomless iniquity into which a perverted 
conscience may lead men whose greatest desire is the 
glory of God. 

The names of few of these martyrs have been pre- 
served, but the complaints of their obstinacy and ob- 
duracy that abound in the Catholic writings of the period 
are the convincing testimony to their heroic constancy. 
They saw the truth clearly and were loyal to it at every 
cost. They were slain by tens of thousands; a remnant 
of them were driven into inaccessible mountain fast- 
nesses, where they maintained themselves and their faith 
for centuries ; they became a " hidden seed " in many 
parts of Europe. By her system of vigor and rigor the 
Roman Church won a temporary triumph: heresy was 
apparently suppressed; the reformation of the church 
was postponed for three centuries. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY 

'HT^HERE were protestants before Protestantism, re- 
X formers before the Reformation — not only indi- 
vidual protestants, as we have already seen, but prot- 
estant bodies. The corruption of the primitive churches 
and the development of Roman Catholicism was a logi- 
cal process that extended over a period of centuries. As 
the church diverged more and more widely from the 
faith once delivered to the saints, as the papacy gradually 
extended its power over all Europe, except where the 
Greek Church successfully resisted its claims, it was in- 
evitable that this tyranny should, from time to time, pro- 
voke revolts ; that against this apostasy there should be 
periodic reactions toward a purer faith. From the be- 
ginning of the twelfth century these uprisings within 
the church became more numerous, until the various pro- 
tests combined their forces, in large part unconsciously, 
to form the movement since known as the Reformation. 
It is a curious fact that each of these revolts against 
the corrupt doctrine and life of the church had an 
independent origin within the church itself. There may 
have been, there doubtless was, some connection between 
these various revolts, some connection also between 
them and the earlier heresies and schisms, so called, in 
the church. Though one may feel morally certain of 
this fact, actual proof of it is not possible; all trace of 
the connection has disappeared, and there is little reason 
to hope that proofs will ever be recovered. 

But if we may not trace, by unbroken historical 
no 



THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY III 

descent, a line of sects protesting against the corruptions 
and usurpations of the Roman Catholic Church, and so 
establish the antiquity of any one modern Protestant de- 
nomination, it still remains an unquestioned historic fact 
that these successive revolts constituted a gradual and 
effective preparation for the general movement known 
as the Reformation, and for the rise of modern evan- 
gelical bodies. So convinced are some modern investi- 
gators (not Baptists) of the substantial identity of these 
various attempts at a reformation, from the twelfth cen- 
tury onward, that they treat these attempts as one con- 
tinuous movement. Dr. Ludwig Keller, formerly State 
archivist at Minister, gives to the various phases of this 
revolt against Rome, the title of " The Old Evangelical 
Party," and asserts its substantial unity and identity 
for several centuries before the Lutheran Reformation. 
By ingenious conjecture, rather than by valid historic 
proofs, he makes out a plausible case, which further re- 
search may, perhaps, fully confirm. An identity of 
spirit, a substantial unanimity of teaching, he has shown, 
and this is a fact of great significance. 

The earliest of these protests that took definite form 
grew out of the work of Peter of Bruys. Not much is 
known of the life of this teacher. It is said by some 
that, like Arnold of Brescia, he was a pupil of Abelard, 
but this is doubtful. He is found preaching in Southern 
France soon after the beginning of the twelfth century, 
where he labored for twenty years, and he was burned 
as a heretic in the year 1126. His doctrines are known 
to us chiefly through his bitter enemy and persecutor, 
Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Clugny, who wrote a book 
against the heresy of the Petrobrusians. With due allow- 
ance for the mistakes honestly made by this prelate, we 
may deduce approximately the teachings of this body. 
We find their fundamental principle to be the rejection 



112 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of tradition and an appeal to Scripture as the sole au- 
thority in religion. The abbot complains in his treatise 
that these heretics will not yield to tradition or the au- 
thority of the church, but demand Scripture proof for 
everything; because it would have been easy for him to 
confute them by quoting any quantity of passages from 
the Fathers, only these obstinate heretics would have 
none of the Fathers. 

In the preface to his treatise, the abbot sums up the 
errors of the Petrobrusians under five heads, which he 
then proceeds to answer at length. The first error is 
their denial " that children, before the age of under- 
standing, can be saved by the baptism of Christ, or that 
another's faith avails those who cannot exercise faith 
since, according to them [the Petrobrusians] not 
another's, but one's own faith, together with baptism, 
saves, as the Lord says, ' He who will believe and be 
baptized shall be saved, but he who will not believe shall 
be condemned.' " " Infants, though baptized by you 
[Romanists], because by reason of age they neverthe- 
less cannot believe, are by no means saved; [that is to 
say, are not saved by baptism ; this is evidently what the 
Petrobrusians taught, not a denial of the salvation of 
infants ; to a Romanist, denial of baptism was a denial 
of salvation, but not so to the Petrobrusians] ; hence it 
is idle and vain at that time to wet men with water, 
by which ye may wash away the filth of the body after 
the manner of men, but ye can by no means cleanse the 
soul from sin. But we wait for the proper time, and 
after a man is prepared to know his God and believe in 
him, we do not (as you accuse us) rebaptize him, but 
we baptize him who can be said never to have been 
baptized — washed with the baptism by which sins are 
washed away." 

The second error charged was that these heretics said, 



THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY 113 

" Edifices for temples and churches should not be erected; 
that those erected should be pulled down; that places 
sacred to prayer are unnecessary for Christians, since 
equally in the inn and the church, in forum or temple, 
before the altar or stable, if God is invoked he hears 
and answers those who deserve it." Again, they are 
quoted as saying, " It is superfluous to build temples, 
since the church of God does not consist in a multitude 
of stones joined together, but in the unity of the believers 
assembled." 

The third shocking error enumerated by the abbot 
is that the Petrobrusians " command the sacred crosses 
to be broken in pieces and burned, because that form or 
instrument by which Christ was so dreadfully tortured, 
so cruelly slain, is not worthy of any adoration, or ven- 
eration or supplication, but for the avenging of his tor- 
ments and death it should be treated with unseemly 
dishonor, cut in pieces with swords, burnt in fire." 

The fourth error, according to the same authority, was 
that the Petrobrusians denied sacramental grace, espe- 
cially the doctrine of transubstantiation, the keystone of 
the sacramental system : " They deny, not only the truth 
of the body and blood of the Lord, daily and constantly 
offered in the church through the sacrament, but de- 
clare that it is nothing at all, and ought not to be offered 
to God." They say, " Oh, people, do not believe the 
bishops, priests, or clergy who seduce you; who, as in 
many things, so in the office of the altar, deceive you 
when they falsely profess to make the body of Christ, 
and give it to you for the salvation of your souls. They 
clearly lie. For the body of Christ was made only once 
by Christ himself in the supper before his passion, and 
once for all at this time only was given to his disciples. 
Hence it is neither made by any one nor given to any 
one." These words convey an utter absurdity, that 

H 



114 A SHORT HISTORY OP THE BAPTISTS 

Christ, while still in the flesh, made and gave his body to 
his disciples; but the absurdity is doubtless one of the 
abbot's blunders. What is certain is the repudiation by 
the Petrobrusians of the sacrifice of the mass. 

The fifth error is that " they deride sacrifices, prayers, 
alms, and other good works by the faithful living for the 
faithful dead, and say that these things cannot aid any 
of the dead even in the least." Again : " The good deeds 
of the living cannot profit the dead, because translated 
from this life their merits cannot be increased or di- 
minished, for beyond this life there is no longer place 
for merits, only for retribution. Nor can a dead man 
hope from anybody that which while alive in the world 
he did not obtain. Therefore those things are vain that 
are done by the living for the dead, because since they 
are mortal they passed by death over the way for all 
flesh to the state of the future world, and took with 
them all their merit, to which nothing can be added." 

From these statements of Peter the Venerable it is 
plain that the Petrobrusians held that a true church is 
composed only of believers; that faith should precede 
baptism, and therefore the baptism of infants is a mean- 
ingless ceremony. They held these things because they 
found them taught in the Scriptures, and rejected the 
authority of the church and of the Fathers to impose 
terms of salvation on them beyond those imposed by 
Christ and the apostles. Their apparent denial of the 
salvation of infants is probably a misconception of the 
abbot's, as was also his attributing to them the notion 
that man may merit the favor of God by good works in 
this life. The good Peter was so fully imbued with 
Catholic ideas that he was incapable of comprehending 
fully the teachings of the Petrobrusians, though he seems 
to have tried to do it. 

What shall we say to the opposition of the Petro- 



THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY 115 

brusians to church buildings, crosses, the singing of 
hymns — which the abbot mentions in the body of his 
treatise — and the like? This merely: they had become 
so accustomed to the misuse of these things, to seeing 
them the concomitants of an idolatrous worship, that they 
became unwise, extreme, fanatical, in their opposition to 
them. It was a quite natural result of the vigor of their 
reaction from the false teaching and false practice that 
they found in the Catholic churches of their day. 

It is evident that the " errors " of the Petrobrusians 
were what Baptists have always maintained to be the 
fundamental truths of the Scriptures. Any body of 
Christians that holds to the supremacy of the Scrip- 
tures, a church of the regenerate only, and believers' bap- 
tism, is fundamentally one with the Baptist churches of 
to-day, whatever else it may add to or omit from its 
statement of beliefs. Contemporary records have been 
sought in vain to establish any essential doctrine taught 
by this condemned sect that is inconsistent either with 
the teaching of Scripture or with the beliefs avowed in 
recent times by Baptists. With regard to the act of bap- 
tism contemporary record says nothing. There was no 
reason why it should, unless there was some peculiarity 
in the administration of baptism among the Petrobru- 
sians. It cannot be positively affirmed that they were 
exclusively immersionists ; but if they were, the fact 
would call for no special mention by contemporary 
writers, since immersion was still the common practice 
of the church in the twelfth century. 

There were other preachers of a pure gospel, nearly 
contemporary with Peter of Bruys and more or less 
closely connected with him. Like him they came forth 
from the Roman Church. The monastery of Clugny, 
in Burgundy, was the most famous cloister of medieval 
times. Founded early in the tenth century, it enforced 



Il6 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the rule of Benedict with rigor, and was famous for the 
piety and scholarship of its abbots and monks. At the 
beginning of the twelfth century its discipline had been 
greatly relaxed, and its internal management had become 
scandalous. Chastity, sobriety, and piety were unmean- 
ing words; they represented nothing in the life of the 
inmates. Later, under the rule of Peter the Venerable, 
the discipline was reformed and the ancient glories of 
the cloister were more than equaled. 

At a time when things were at their worst, a monk 
named Henry became an inmate of Clugny. His birth- 
place and date of birth are not certainly known; both 
Switzerland and Italy are given for the former, and of the 
latter all that can be said is that he was probably born 
toward the close of the eleventh century. We know that 
he was a man of earnest soul, to whom religion was not 
a mere mockery, and that he was so disgusted with the 
immoral lives of the Clugny monks that he could no 
longer stay there. Renouncing his cowl and the cloister 
life, he began to preach the gospel from place to place. 
He never ceased to denounce the monks, and they, in 
turn, followed him with calumnies. Even the saintly 
Bernard speaks of Henry's shameless mode of life, but 
gives no proofs ; and his letter is so tinged with bitterness 
as to make his charges of no weight. 

Henry is a somewhat vague figure. We can only 
catch glimpses of him going up and down France, like 
a flaming fire, rousing the people to detestation of the 
monks, and to some degree of the secular clergy also. 
He is described as a man of imposing appearance, whose 
fiery eye, thundering voice, and great knowledge of the 
Scriptures made him a preacher who swayed at will the 
multitudes that listened to him. He does not appear to 
have been a heretic, at least in the earlier part of his 
career, but a would-be reformer. In 1116 he created a 



THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY I IJ 

great commotion in the diocese of Mans, denouncing the 
corruption of the clergy and preaching the truths of 
Scripture until the bishop drove him away. Soon after 
this he met Peter of Bruys and accompanied him in his 
labors. It does not appear that at this time he avowed 
sympathy with the doctrines of Peter, for when he was 
arrested in 1134 by the bishop of Aries and brought be- 
fore the Council of Pisa he was not condemned, as an 
adherent of Peter would certainly have been, but soon 
after released. No doubt he was considered indiscreet 
in the things he had been saying about the clergy, but 
evidently no ground was then discovered for treating 
him as a heretic. 

After this he repaired to Southern France, and con- 
tinued his preaching. From this time there is good rea- 
son to suppose that he adopted, in part at least, the opin- 
ions of Peter of Bruys, especially the denial that infants 
are scripturally baptized. One of Bernard's letters seems 
to be conclusive on this point. Writing to the Count of 
Toulouse, to warn him against this ravening wolf mas- 
querading in sheep's clothing, he thus bears testimony to 
the extent of Henry's influence and speaks of his 
teachings : 



The churches are without congregations, congregations without 
priests, priests without their due reverence, and, worst of all, 
Christians without Christ. Churches are regarded as synagogues, 
the sanctuary of God is said to have no sanctity, the sacraments 
are not thought to be sacred, feast days are deprived of their 
wonted solemnities. Men are dying in their sins, souls are be- 
ing dragged everywhere before the dread Tribunal, neither being 
reconciled by repentance nor fortified by Holy Communion. The 
way of Christ is shut to the children of Christians, and they are 
not allowed to enter the way of salvation, although the Saviour 
lovingly calls on their behalf, " Suffer little children to come unto 
me." Does God, then, who, as he has multiplied his mercy, has 
saved both man and beast, debar innocent Httle children from 



Il8 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

this his so great mercy? Why, I ask, why does he begrudge to 
little ones their Infant Saviour, who was born for them? This 
envy is of the devil. By this envy death entered into the whole 
world. Or does he suppose that little children have no need of a 
Saviour, because they are children? 

It does not seem open to reasonable doubt, therefore, 
that Henry of Lausanne, like Peter of Bruys and the 
Waldenses, taught that only believers should be baptized, 
and that the baptism of unconscious babes is a travesty 
upon the baptism of the New Testament. 

The end of Henry is sad. He was again arrested and 
arraigned before the Synod of Rheims in 1148, by which 
body he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. It 
is not definitely known whether he was convicted of 
heresy, probably not, or immediate death would have been 
his portion. It is possible that under torture some kind 
of retraction was wrung from him; and when a heretic 
thus confessed, the church would sometimes merci- 
fully (?) spare his life and let him drag out a miserable 
existence in her dungeons. Nothing more is known of 
his fate. From the oubliettes of the church none ever 
returned, and the day of their death was never known. 
We may hope, in the absence of all information, that 
Henry of Lausanne continued to the last the faithful con- 
fessor of the truth he had preached. He left behind him 
numerous followers, who took the name of Henricians 
and were little other than Petrobrusians under a different 
name. Like the Petrobrusians, they seem to have been 
absorbed into the body known as Waldenses, and do not 
long maintain a separate name and existence. 

In the latter part of the twelfth century Southern 
France was the scene of a still more energetic reaction 
from the Church of Rome, which is remarkable in that 
it was not at first a reform movement, and was not hos- 
tile to the church until driven by it into hostility. The 



THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY 119 

new party was called Poor Men of Lyons, Leonists, and 
Waldenses, the last being perhaps their best-known 
name. The origin alike of name and party is obscure, 
but both seem to have originated with a citizen of Lyons 
named Peter Waldo, or, more properly, Valdez (Latin, 
Valdesius ) . This name probably indicates the place of his 
birth — in the Canton of Vaud perhaps; and as Peter of 
the Valley he was distinguished from the numerous other 
Peters of his day. We first gain sight of him about the 
year 1150 when, already past middle life, he was a rich 
merchant of Lyons, who had not been over-particular, it 
is said, about the means by which he had acquired his 
fortune. One day a friend fell dead at his side. Waldo 
said to himself: If death had stricken me, what would 
have become of my soul ? Other circumstances increased 
his burden of mind, until he sought a master of theology 
for the consolation that he was unable to find in the 
round of fasts and penances prescribed by the church. 
The theologian talked learnedly, and the more he talked 
the greater became Waldo's perplexity. Finally he 
asked, " Of all the roads that lead to heaven, which is 
the surest? I desire to follow the perfect way." "Ah ! " 
answered the theologian, " that being the case, here is 
Christ's precept : ' If thou wilt be perfect, go sell that 
thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
treasure in heaven; and come take up thy cross and 
follow me.' " 

Waldo returned home pondering these words. Had 
he been a learned theologian he would at once have un- 
derstood that the words were not to be understood lit- 
erally, but contained some mystical or allegorical mean- 
ing; he was a plain man and knew no better than to 
obey. First of all, he told his resolution to his wife. 
She being of a worldly turn, and by no means alarmed 
about her soul's salvation, was much vexed. At length 



120 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Waldo said to her, " I am possessed of personal property 
and real estate, take your choice." The real estate was 
of no small value : including houses, meadows, vineyards, 
woods, bake-houses, and mills, the rents of which brought 
in a goodly income. The wife's choice was quickly 
made; she chose the real estate, leaving to Waldo the 
business and ready money. Closing out his business, 
Waldo devoted a portion of his money to providing a 
dowry for his daughters; and with other sums he made 
reparation to such as he had treated unjustly in business. 

Considerable money yet remained to him, and he de- 
voted it to the relief of the poor in Lyons, where a famine 
was then raging. He had been a man of business, and 
his charity was managed in a business-like way. He 
planned a distribution of bread, meat, and other pro- 
visions, three times a week, beginning at Pentecost and 
continuing until mid-August. Thus he did until his 
money was exhausted, and he was fain to ask food of 
a friend for himself. His wife heard of this and was 
very angry. She appealed to the archbishop, and be- 
sought Waldo himself in these words : " Husband, listen ; 
if any one is to redeem his soul by the alms he gives you, 
is it not best that it should be your wife rather than such 
as are not of our household? " The archbishop delivered 
a homily on his extravagance and formally forbade him, 
when he was in the city, ever to take food anywhere but 
at his wife's table. 

In the meantime, Waldo had been studying the Scrip- 
tures. Finding the Latin hard to understand, he sought 
out two ecclesiastics who were willing to translate it into 
his vernacular, for a consideration. One wrote while 
the other dictated, and in this way they made a transla- 
tion of the Gospels, selections from the Epistles, and a 
collection of maxims from the Fathers of the church. 
This translation Waldo read and studied until it was 




Pa?e 120 



THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY 121 

indelibly engraved on mind and heart, and flowed spon- 
taneously from his lips. From meditating on it himself 
he began to repeat it to others. The wandering ballad- 
singer was a popular institution in his time and country, 
and he had little difficulty in persuading people to listen 
to his stories from the Gospels, instead of a secular 
ballad. And so Waldo became a preacher of the gospel, 
little more than a reciter of its precepts at first, and with 
no intention of revolting against Rome, wishing only 
the privilege of telling to others the good news of sal- 
vation that had been so precious to his own troubled 
heart. Soon he gained disciples. These he taught as- 
siduously, until they too could tell the simple gospel 
story, and as they gained skill he sent them forth to the 
shops and market-places, to visit from house to house, 
and preach the truth. These preachers literally obeyed 
the instructions of Christ to the seventy ; they went forth 
in voluntary poverty, anxious only to proclaim the king- 
dom of God, and accepting such hospitality as was 
voluntarily offered them. 

Such a work as this could not go on long without the 
cognizance of Roman ecclesiastics. The preachers were 
becoming numerous and spreading apace. True, they 
did not oppose the church in any way; they were not 
known to teach any heresy; but the priesthood was 
jealous of these unauthorized preachers and demanded 
that they be silenced. Waldo was banished from the dio- 
cese of Archbishop Guichard, and in 1177 he betook 
himself to Rome to appeal to the pope, Alexander III. 
But those were the days of triumphant clericalism, and 
Waldo's appeal was fruitless. The pope received 
Waldo kindly, as a good son of the church ; his vow of 
poverty was a thing that every ecclesiastic approved. It 
is even said that Alexander kissed Waldo's cheek, as a 
sign of recognition of his holy repute. But in the matter 



122 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of preaching, the pope stood firm ; his answer was : " You 
shall not, under any circumstances, preach except at the 
express desire and under the authority of the clergy of 
your country " — the men who had already silenced and 
banished him. 

This hard sentence was the parting of the ways to 
Waldo and his followers. Should they obey God or 
man? Should they choose church or Christ? They 
were not long in making choice, and in making it they 
became heretics, reformers, for they set themselves 
against the church that they might have liberty to follow 
Christ. In this treatment of Waldo, Rome showed her- 
self less wise than afterward, when Francis of Assisi 
sought similar tolerance for his order of preachers. Had 
Pope Alexander III. been a little more astute there might 
have been a new order of lay preachers in the Roman 
Church, no sect of the Waldenses and, perhaps, no 
Lutheran Reformation. 

But though the Waldenses now became schismatics, 
and were soon regarded as heretical, they did not cease 
to multiply. Persecution had no effect in checking their 
growth, at least for some time. This rapid growth of 
the body cannot be explained wholly by the general pre- 
paredness of the church for the preaching of a more 
spiritual faith; or, rather, that state of feeling itself re- 
quires explanation. In the scattered fragments of pre- 
ceding sects, notably of the Petrobrusians, soil was found 
most favorable for the propagation of the teachings of 
Waldo. The Waldenses, in their earlier history, appear 
to be little else than Petrobrusians under a different name. 
For, though there is reason to suppose that Waldo him- 
self owed nothing to Peter of Bruys, but arrived at the 
truth independently, he at once became the spiritual heir 
of his predecessor and namesake, and carried on the 
same work. The doctrines of the early Waldenses are 



THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY 127, 

substantially identical with those of the Petrobrusians, 
the persecutors of both being witnesses. For example, 
Roman writers before 1350 attribute the following errors 
to the Waldenses : 

1. Regarding the Scriptures. Their enemies charge 
the Waldenses with holding these errors : " They assert 
that the doctrine of Christ and the apostles, without the 
decrees of the church, suffices for salvation. They know 
by heart the New Testament and most of the Old Testa- 
ment in the vulgar tongue. They oppose the mystical 
sense in the Scriptures. They say holy Scripture has 
the same effect in the vulgar tongue as in the Latin. 
Everything preached which is not to be proved by the 
text of the Bible they hold to be fable." " They neither 
have nor receive the Old Testament, but the Gospels, that 
by them they may attack us and defend themselves; 
saying that when the gospel came all old things passed 
away." But this, if true at all, is true only of some of 
the Waldenses, for nothing is better established than 
that they translated the whole Bible and received it all 
as authoritative. 

2. Regarding baptism. " They say that a man is then 
truly for the first time baptized when he is brought into 
their heresy. But some say that baptism does not profit 
little children (parvulos), because they are never able 
actually to believe." " One argument of their error is, 
that they say baptism does not profit little children to 
salvation, who have neither the motive nor the act of 
faith, because, as it is said in the latter part of Mark, 
' He who will not believe will be condemned.' " " Con- 
cerning baptism they say that the catechism is of no 
value. . . That the washing given to infants does not 
profit. . . That the sponsors do not understand what 
they answer to the priest. They do not regard 
compaternity," i. e., the relation of sponsors. 



124 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

3. Concerning the church. " They say that the Roman 
Church is not the church of Jesus Christ, but is a church 
of wicked ones, and it [that is, the true church] ceased 
to exist under Sylvester, when the poison of temporal 
things was infused into the church. . . All approved 
customs of the church of which they do not read in the 
Gospels they despise, as the feast of candles, of palms, 
the reconciliation of penitents, adoration of the cross, the 
feast of Easter, and they spurn the feasts of the saints on 
account of the multiplication of saints. And they say 
one day is just like another, therefore they secretly work 
on feast days." " The Roman Church is the harlot of 
Babylon, and all who obey it are condemned. . . They 
affirmed that they alone were the church of Christ and 
the disciples of Christ. That they are the sucessors of 
the apostles and have apostolic authority." . . 

4. Concerning purgatory. " They say there is no 
purgatory, but all dying immediately go either to heaven 
or to hell. They assert that prayers offered by the 
church for the dead do not avail; for those in heaven 
do not need them, and those in hell are not at all as- 
sisted. They say that the saints in heaven do not hear 
the prayers of the faithful, nor the praises by which we 
honor them. They argue earnestly that since the bodies 
of the saints lie here dead, and their spirits are so far 
removed from us in heaven, they can by no means hear 
our prayers. They say also that the saints do not pray 
for us, and therefore we ought not to implore their 
prayers ; because, absorbed in heavenly joy, they cannot 
take heed of us or care for anything else." " Whenever 
any sinner repents, however great and many the sins he 
has committed, if he dies he immediately rises [i. e., to 
heaven]. . . They assert that there is no purgatorial 
fire except in the present, nor do the prayers of the 
church profit the dead nor does anything done for them." 




Waldo 



THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY 1 25 

5. Regarding the Mass. " They do not believe it to 
be really the body and blood of Christ, but only bread 
blessed, which by a certain figure is said to be the body 
of Christ ; as it is said, ' But the rock was Christ,' and 
similar passages. But this blessing, some say, can only 
be performed by the good, but others say by all who 
know the words of consecration. . . They observe 
this in their conventicles, reciting those words of the 
Gospels at their table and participating together as in 
the supper of Christ." " Concerning the sacrament of 
the Eucharist they say that priests in mortal sin cannot 
make [the body of Christ]. They say that transubstan- 
tiation does not take place in the hands of the unworthy 
maker, but in the mouth of the worthy receiver, and can 
be made on a common table. . . Again they say that 
transubstantiation takes place by words in the vernacu- 
lar. . . They say that the holy Scripture has the same 
effect in the vulgar tongue as in the Latin, whence they 
make [the body of Christ] in the vulgar tongue and give 
the sacraments. . . They say that the church singing 
is infernal clamor." 

It seems evident, by comparing these reports, that some 
of the Roman writers did not clearly comprehend the 
Waldensian doctrine ; according to others, the Waldenses 
did not believe in transubstantiation at all, but they did 
believe that the Lord's Supper should be celebrated in the 
vernacular. As for calling singing " infernal clamor," 
the reference is evidently to the singing of the mass by the 
priests, and to the use of Latin hymns, not an objec- 
tion to singing per se. That the latter cannot be meant 
is proved by the fact that the first literature of the 
Waldenses took the form of hymns. 

Other less serious heresies are alleged: as that the 
followers of Waldo all preached without ordination ; that 
they declared the pope to be the head of all errors; that 



126 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

confession was to be made to God alone; that they ab- 
horred the sign of the cross. Also we find attributed 
to them certain tenets that were afterward characteristic 
of the Anabaptists; such as, " In no case, for any neces- 
sity or usefulness must one swear " ; and " For no reason 
should one slay." 

In the face of all but unanimous testimony of Roman 
authorities, it has been denied that the early Waldenses 
rejected infant baptism. Stress is laid on the fact that in 
the earliest of their literature that has come down to us 
the Waldensians are Pedobaptists, or at least do not op- 
pose infant baptism. It is also an unquestioned fact that 
the later Waldensians — those who found a refuge in the 
valleys of Savoy after the crusade of Simon de Montfort 
in Southern France — are found to be Pedobaptists at the 
earliest authentic period of their history. But all this 
is not necessarily inconsistent with the accounts of the 
sect as given us by contemporary Romanists. Nearly 
three hundred years elapsed between the crusade and the 
Reformation, and during these centuries the escaped 
Waldenses dwelt among the high valleys of Eastern 
France and Savoy, isolated and forgotten. Great ignor- 
ance came upon them, as is testified by the literature that 
has survived, and in time they so far forgot the doctrines 
of their forefathers that many of the writers saw but 
little difference between themselves and the Romanists. 
Some of the old spirit remained, however, so that when 
in 1532 a Pedobaptist creed was adopted at the Synod 
of Angrogne, under the guidance of the Swiss reformers, 
Farel and QEcolampadius, a large minority refused to be 
bound by this new creed, declaring it to be a reversal 
of their previous beliefs. That they were correct in this 
interpretation is the verdict of modern scholars who have 
thoroughly investigated the earlier Waldensian history. 

The balance of evidence is therefore clearly in favor 



THE OLD EVANGELICAL PARTY 1 27 

of the conclusion that the early followers of Waldo 
taught and practised the baptism of believers only. Dr. 
Keller, the latest and most candid investigator of the sub- 
ject, holds this view : " Very many Waldenses considered, 
as we know accurately, the baptism on [profession of] 
faith to be that form which is conformable with the 
words and example of Christ. They held this to be the 
sign of the covenant of a good conscience with God, and 
it was certain to them that it had value only as such." 
This belief would logically exclude infant baptism, and 
accordingly Dr. Keller tells us, " Mostly they let their 
children be baptized [by Romish priests?], yet with the 
reservation that this ceremony was null and void." Main- 
taining these views, they were the spiritual ancestors of 
the Anabaptist churches that sprang up all over 
continental Europe in the early years of the Reformation. 
The history of the Waldenses is a tale of bitter and 
almost continuous persecution. Waldo himself is said to 
have died in or about the year 12 17, but if he lived so 
long he must have seen his followers everywhere pro- 
scribed, yet everywhere increasing. In 1183, at the 
Council of Verone, Pope Lucian III. issued a decree of 
perpetual anathema against various heretics, including 
the Poor Men of Lyons. Innocent III., wiser than other 
popes, attempted to win back the Waldenses. One Du- 
rand, who had been, or pretended to have been, a Wal- 
densian preacher, was persuaded at the Disputation of 
Pamiers (in the territory of Toulouse) to submit to the 
church. He and certain others submitted a confession 
of their faith to the pope, who approved it and author- 
ized them to form a religious order of Catholic poor. 
The Roman ecclesiastics, in spite of Innocent's repeated 
admonitions to them, never took kindly to this order, and 
this reaction did not have the effect anticipated. Inno- 
cent himself seems to have at length abandoned hope of 



128 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

reclaiming the Waldenses, and at the Fourth Lateran 
Council, of 12 1 5, their final condemnation was pro- 
nounced. In order to prevent the spread of this and 
other heresies, the Synod of Toulouse (1229) forbade 
laymen to read vernacular translations of the Bible, and 
the Synod of Tarracona (1234) even extended this 
prohibition to the clergy also. 

It does not concern our present purpose to narrate at 
more length the story of the cruel oppressions to which 
the Waldenses were thenceforth subjected. Suffice it to 
say that, except among the valleys of the Alps they were 
eventually exterminated or driven to a secret life. But 
in the Alps and Northern Italy they have survived until 
the present day, and in many parts of Europe they leav- 
ened the Roman Church so as effectually to prepare the 
way for the later Reformation. And it is a curious and 
instructive fact that the Anabaptist churches of the Ref- 
ormation period were most numerous precisely where the 
Waldenses of a century or two previous had most flour- 
ished, and where their identity as Waldenses had been 
lost. That there was an intimate relation between the 
two movements, few doubt who have studied this period 
and its literature. The torch of truth was handed on 
from generation to generation, and though it often smol- 
dered and was even apparently extinguished, it needed 
but a breath to blaze up again and give light to all 
mankind. 



CHAPTER X 

GREBEL AND THE SWISS ANABAPTISTS 

THE origin of the Anabaptists of Switzerland is ob- 
scure. The testimony of contemporaries is that 
they derived their chief doctrines from sects that ante- 
dated the Reformation, and this testimony is confirmed 
by so many collateral proofs as to commend itself to 
many modern historians. Vadian, the burgomaster of 
St. Gall, and brother-in-law to Conrad Grebel, says of 
the Anabaptists, " They received the dogma of baptizing 
from the suggestions of others." The industrious Fusslin 
reached this opinion : " There were before the Reforma- 
tion people in Zurich who, filled with errors, gave birth 
to the Anabaptists. Grebel was taught by them; he did 
not discover his own doctrines, but was taught by others." 
In our own day impartial German investigators have 
reached similar conclusions. Thus Dr. Heberle writes : 

In carrying out their fundamental ideas, the party of Grebel 
paid less attention to dogmatics than to the direction of church, 
civil, and social life. They urged the putting away of all modes 
of worship which were unknown to the church of the apostles, 
and the restoration of the observance, according to their institu- 
tion, of the two ceremonies ordained by Christ. They contended 
against the Christianity of worldly governments, rejected the 
salaries of preachers, the taking of interest and tithes, the 
use of the sword, and demanded the return of apostolic 
excommunication and primitive community of goods. 

It is well known that just these principles are found in the 
sects of the Middles Ages. The supposition is therefore very 
probable that between these and the rebaptizers of the Reforma- 
tion there was an external historical connection. The possibility 
of this as respects Switzerland is all the greater, since just here 
I 129 



130 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the traces of these sects, especially of the Waldenses, can be 
followed down to the end of the fifteenth century. But a positive 
proof in this connection we have not. . . In reality the ex- 
planation of this agreement needs no proof of a real historical 
union between Anabaptists and their predecessors, for the ab- 
stract biblical standpoint upon which the one as well as the other 
place themselves is sufficient of itself to prove a union of the 
two in the above-mentioned doctrines. 1 

The utmost that can be said in the present state of 
historical research is that a moral certainty exists of a 
connection between the Swiss Anabaptists and their Wal- 
densian and Petrobrusian predecessors, sustained by 
many significant facts, but not absolutely proved by his- 
torical evidence. Those who maintain that the Anabap- 
tists originated with the Reformation have some diffi- 
cult problems to solve, among others the rapidity with 
which the new leaven spread, and the wide territory that 
the Anabaptists so soon covered. It is common to regard 
them as an insignificant handful of fanatics, but abun- 
dant documentary proofs exist to show that they were 
numerous, widespread, and indefatigable ; that their chief 
men were not inferior in learning and eloquence to any 
of the reformers; that their teachings were scriptural, 
consistent, and moderate, except where persecution pro- 
duced the usual result of enthusiasm and vagary. 

Another problem demanding solution is furnished by 
the fact that these Anabaptist churches were not gradu- 
ally developed, but appear fully formed from the first — 
complete in polity, sound in doctrine, strict in discipline. 
It will be found impossible to account for these phe- 
nomena without an assumption of a long-existing cause. 
Though the Anabaptist churches appear suddenly in the 
records of the time, contemporaneously with the Zwing- 
lian Reformation, their roots are to be sought farther 
back. 

l " Jahrbiicher fiir Deutsche Theohgie," 1858, p. 276 seq. 




Pa^e 130 



HULDREICH ZWINGLI 



GREBEL AND THE SWISS ANABAPTISTS I3I 

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Switzerland 
was the freest country in Europe — a confederacy of thir- 
teen cantons and free cities, acknowledging no alle- 
giance to emperor or king. These cantons differed greatly 
in speech, customs, and form of government; their chief 
bond of union was, in fact, hatred of their common foe, 
the House of Hapsburg. Zurich was governed by a 
council of two. hundred, and the ultimate power rested 
with the various guilds to which the burghers belonged. 
It was, in a word, a commercial oligarchy, maintaining a 
republican form of government. Little could be under- 
taken, certainly nothing of moment could be accom- 
plished, without the approval of the council. 

The Reformation in Switzerland was quite independent 
of the Lutheran movement, though it occurred practi- 
cally at the same time. Reuchlin had given instruction 
in the classics at the University of Basel; and Erasmus 
came to that city in 15 14, to get his edition of the New 
Testament printed. The study of the original Scriptures 
in Hebrew and Greek received a great impetus, and the 
result could not long be doubtful. The Swiss people had 
once been devoted adherents of the papacy, but knowl- 
edge of the corruption of the church and the unworthy 
character of prelates had penetrated even there and 
greatly weakened the hold of the church on the people. 
The clergy, though not so bad as in some localities, were 
still far from illustrating the virtues they preached. The 
Scripture seed fell into soil ready to receive it and give it 
increase. 

The leader in this reformation was Ulric Zwingli, born 
in 1484, at Wildhaus, in the canton of St. Gall, edu- 
cated at the University of Vienna, a teacher at 
Basel and then pastor at Glarus in 1506, later at 
Einsiedeln, and finally at Zurich. He was during 
his earlier priesthood unchaste and godless, like many of 



132 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the clergy, but he was led to the study of the Greek 
Testament, and God's grace touched his heart and made 
a new man of him. His preaching became noted for 
spiritual power and eloquence. As in Luther's case, he 
was first brought into prominence by opposition to the 
sale of indulgences. One Samson, a worthy companion 
to the infamous Tetzel, came to Switzerland hoping to 
conduct a brisk traffic in indulgences, and was roundly 
rebuked by Zwingli : " Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has 
said, ' Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest.' Is it not, then, most 
presumptuous folly and senseless temerity to declare on 
the contrary — ' Buy letters of indulgence, hasten to 
Rome, give to the monks, sacrifice to the priests, and if 
thou doest these things I absolve thee from thy sins ? ' 
Jesus Christ is the only oblation, the only sacrifice, the 
only way." 

As the Roman Church had been established by law, 
and its priests were largely paid out of the treasury, 
it was the most natural thing in the world that, as the 
reformation continued, the reformed church and min- 
istry should also be an appanage of the State. Zwingli 
was called to Zurich and was kept in his position there by 
the council, and as the reform developed that body took 
into its hands the direction of religious as well as civil 
affairs. It probably occurred to few of the worthy 
burghers that there was any impropriety in this. In 
1520 the council issued an order that all pastors and 
preachers should declare the pure word of God, and 
Zwingli had announced as his principle the rejection of 
everything in doctrine or practice not warranted by the 
Scriptures. In a disputation held January 29, 1523, he 
made his appeal on all points to the Scriptures — copies of 
which in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin he had on a table be- 
fore him. He vainly challenged his Catholic adversaries 



GREBEL AND THE SWISS ANABAPTISTS 1 33 

to refute him from the Scriptures, and the council re- 
newed their order that all the preachers in the canton 
should teach only what was found in the Scriptures. 

Up to this time we find no trace of the Anabaptists, as 
such. The reason evidently is that Zwingli and the 
Zurich Council were virtually Anabaptists themselves. 
They had adopted the most radical and revolutionary of 
Anabaptist principles, that the Scriptures should be the 
sole rule of faith and practice, and that whatever the 
Scriptures do not teach must be rejected. Nor was 
Zwingli unconscious of what he was doing, and he did not 
at first shrink from the logic of his fundamental prin- 
ciple. As he frankly confesses, he was for a considerable 
time inclined to reject infant baptism, in obedience to 
the fundamental principle he had adopted of accepting 
the Scriptures as the only rule of faith and practice, and 
rejecting everything that had no clear Scripture warrant. 
He had but to go on consistently in this way to have 
made the Zwinglian Reformation an Anabaptist move- 
ment. But having put his hand to the plow, he suf- 
fered himself to look back. He was in bondage to the 
idea of a State Church, a reformation that should have 
back of it the power of the civil magistrate, instead of 
being a spiritual movement simply. But to fulfil this 
ideal, infant baptism was a necessity. The moment the 
church was made a body consisting wholly of the regen- 
erate, it of necessity separated itself from the world. 
The Zurich Council had supported the reform thus far, 
but by no means all its members — possibly not the ma- 
jority — were regenerate men. How far would they sup- 
port a reform that would, as a first step, unchurch them 
and deprive their children of the privilege (as they still 
esteemed it) of baptism? Such a policy of reform 
seemed to Zwingli suicide at the very beginning, for he 
could see a possibility of success only through the support 



134 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of the civil power. In this conviction is to be found, 
not only his reason for breaking with the Anabaptists, 
but the secret of his other mistakes and the cause of his 
untimely death. He gained, it is possible, for his ref- 
ormation a more immediate and outward success, only to 
establish it on a foundation of sand. 

About the year 1523, therefore, Zwingli and some of 
his fellow-reformers came to the parting of the ways. 
Zwingli thenceforth developed conservative tendencies, 
thought the reform had gone far enough, and endeavored 
to restrain those who were impatient for more thorough 
work. A division of sentiment rapidly developed among 
the hitherto united reformers. A strong minority desired 
to continue on the line already begun, to carry out con- 
sistently the principle already avowed that the Scriptures 
were to be the sole arbiter in all matters of faith and 
practice. They pointedly declared that the Bible said no 
more about infant baptism than it said about the mass, 
fasts, the invocation of saints, and other popish abomina- 
tions. The New Testament churches, they said, were 
composed only of those who gave credible evidence of 
regeneration. 

Up to the time of their separation on this question of 
infant baptism, those who afterward became Anabaptist 
leaders were among the most active and trusted of 
Zwingli's lieutenants. This was particularly true of Con- 
rad Grebel. The son of one of the members of the Zurich 
Council, he was socially a man of more importance than 
Zwingli, whose father was a peasant farmer. In elo- 
quence, he appears to have been little the inferior of his 
leader, and he is described by Zwingli himself as " most 
studious, most candid, most learned." He was born in 
the last decade of the fifteenth century, and was educated 
at the universities of Vienna and Paris. At both insti- 
tutions he attained high rank among his fellows, but his 



GREBEL AND THE SWISS ANABAPTISTS I35 

life was wild and dissipated. Some time before 1522 he 
was converted, and from this time on his life was one of 
perfect rectitude and piety. Though not a profound 
scholar, he was a learned man for his time, and his views 
regarding the church were derived from careful study of 
the original Scriptures, especially of the Greek New 
Testament. 

Another of the Anabaptist leaders was Felix Mantz, 
also a native of Zurich, the natural son of a canon, lib- 
erally educated, and especially versed in the Hebrew 
Scriptures. He was the firm friend and adherent of 
Zwingli, until the latter gave up his early principle of 
the supremacy of the Scriptures. Mantz could not chop 
about so easily. Faithfully following the principle to its 
necessary conclusions, he became convinced that the bap- 
tism of infants is nowhere authorized in Scripture, but is, 
on the contrary, excluded by the requirement of personal 
faith as a precedent to baptism. 

Other prominent men among the Anabaptists were 
George Blaurock, a former monk, who for his eloquence 
and zeal was known as a second Paul ; Ludwig Hatzer, 
a native of the canton of St. Gall, who had studied at 
Freiburg and acquired a good knowledge of Hebrew, and 
had the confidence of Zwingli before he became an Ana- 
baptist ; and Balthaser Hiibmaier, of whose life and labors 
a more particular account will be given in a subsequent 
chapter. 

By the beginning of 1525 the break between Zwingli 
and his more radical associates in the work of reform 
had become marked. Their opposition to infant baptism 
became so vehement that at length the council appointed 
a public disputation January 17th. Grebel and Mantz, 
Hatzer and Blaurock, were present and represented the 
radical party, but the council decided that the victory 
was with Zwingli and issued an order that parents 



I36 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

should have their children baptized at once, on pain of 
banishment. 

Thus far no reference is made in the contemporary 
records to Anabaptism. The radicals had begun by sim- 
ply opposing infant baptism and refusing to have their 
own children christened. They did not at once see that 
this contention of theirs invalidated their own baptism. 
If faith must precede baptism, and for that reason they 
could not conscientiously permit their infants to be bap- 
tized, it necessarily followed that they themselves had 
not been baptized. They were not long now in seeing 
this, and from the summer of 1525 we read of rebaptisms. 
At first affusion was practised, probably according to the 
common usage of the Swiss churches of that day, but a 
little later immersion was adopted by some as the baptism 
prescribed by Scripture. The Swiss Anabaptists did not 
arrive all at once at a full understanding of New Tes- 
tament practice, but were led to it gradually, as they 
were taught by the Spirit of God, and possibly by other 
Christians. 

Anabaptism spread with great rapidity. Zwingli and 
the Council of Zurich became alarmed, and again hit 
upon the expedient of a public discussion, on Novem- 
ber 6. The Anabaptists came, but it is not likely that 
they expected a victory, knowing that Zwingli was in- 
flexibly opposed to them, and that his influence was all- 
powerful with the council. Zwingli brought forward the 
arguments of which later Pedobaptists have made so free 
use, that the Abrahamic covenant is continued in the 
New Dispensation, and that baptism replaces circum- 
cision. The Anabaptists, like Baptists of to-day, argued 
that there is no command or example for infant baptism 
in the New Testament, and that instruction and belief 
are enjoined before baptism. Incidentally, Zwingli re- 
proached the Anabaptists for being separatists ; to which 



GREBEL AND THE SWISS ANABAPTISTS 1 37 

they made the unanswerable reply that, if they were such, 
they had as good a right to separate from him as he had 
to separate from the pope. The council, however, made 
an official finding (published under date of November 
30), to the effect that " each one of the Anabaptists hav- 
ing expressed his views without hindrance, it was found, 
by the sure testimonies of holy Scripture, both of the 
Old and the New Testaments, that Zwingli and his fol- 
lowers had overcome the Anabaptists, annihilated Ana- 
baptism, and established infant baptism." So little confi- 
dence had the council in this annihilation of Anabaptism, 
in spite of their swelling words, that they proceeded to 
do what they could to annihilate it by means of the civil 
power. On this occasion they contented themselves with 
ordering all persons to abstain from Anabaptism, and 
baptize their young children. They added this grim warn- 
ing: "Whoever shall act contrary to the order, shall, as 
often as he disobeys, be punished by the fine of a silver 
mark; and if any shall prove disobedient, we shall deal 
with him farther and punish him according to his deserts 
without further forgiveness." 

That this was no light and unmeaning threat, the Ana- 
baptists had immediate reason to know. Grebel, Mantz, 
Blaurock, and others prominent in the movement, were 
summoned before the council and commanded to retract 
their errors; on refusal they were thrown into prison 
loaded with chains, and kept there several months. Hub- 
maier, who had been compelled to seek a refuge in the 
canton, was thrown into prison also; and there sick and 
weak, he yielded for the moment and consented to make 
a public recantation. When brought into the pulpit, 
however, his spirit reasserted itself, and instead of pro- 
nouncing his recantation, he made an address declaring 
his opposition to infant baptism and defending rebaptism. 
His amazed and disappointed hearers unceremoniously 



I38 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

hustled him back to his prison, and by prolonged im- 
prisonment and tortures at length extracted from him 
a written recantation. This was only a weakness of the 
flesh, that is no more honorable to Zwingli and his fol- 
lowers than to Hiibmaier. On his release, he resumed 
his Anabaptism and remained faithful to his convictions 
until his death. 

It would be a painful and useless task to detail the 
cruelties that followed. No persecution was ever more 
gratuitous and unfounded. Some of its later apologists 
have alleged that it was more political than religious, that 
it was a necessary measure to protect the State from 
seditious persons. It is sufficient to reply that contem- 
porary records make no charge of sedition against the 
Anabaptists. They were condemned for Anabaptism, 
and for nothing else; the record stands in black and 
white for all men to read. The Zwinglians found that 
having once undertaken to suppress what they declared 
to be heresy by physical force, more stringent remedies 
than fines and imprisonments were needed. In short, if 
persecution is to be efficient and not ridiculous, there is 
no halting-place this side of the sword and the stake. 
The Zwinglians did not lack courage to make their re- 
pressive measures effectual. On March 7, 1526, it was 
decreed by the Zurich Council that whosoever rebaptized 
should be drowned, and this action was confirmed by a 
second decree of November 19. Felix Mantz, who had 
been released for a time and had renewed his labors at 
Schaffhausen and Basel, was rearrested on December 3, 
found guilty of the heinous crime of Anabaptism, and 
on January 5 was sentenced to death by drowning. 

This barbarous sentence was duly carried out. On the 
way to the place of execution, says Bullinger (a bitterly 
hostile historian), " his mother and brother came to him, 
and exhorted him to be steadfast; and he persevered in 



GREBEL AND THE SWISS ANABAPTISTS I39 

his folly, even to the end. When he was bound upon 
the hurdle and was about to be thrown into the stream by 
the executioner, he sang with a loud voice, 'In manus tuas, 
Domine, commendo spiritum meum' ('into thy hands, 
O Lord, I commend my spirit') ; and herewith was drawn 
into the water and drowned." No wonder Capito wrote 
to Zwingli from Strasburg : " It is reported here that 
your Felix Mantz has suffered punishment and died glori- 
ously; on which account the cause of truth and piety, 
which you sustain, is greatly depressed." 

If anything could depress the Zwinglian movement, one 
would think it would be this brutal treatment of those 
whose only fault was that they had been consistent where 
Zwingli himself had been inconsistent, in keeping close 
to New Testament teaching and precedent. About two 
years later Jacob Faulk and Henry Rieman, having firmly 
refused to retract, but rather having expressed their de- 
termination to preach the gospel and rebaptize converts 
if released, were sentenced to death, taken to a little 
fishing-hut in the middle of the river Limat, where, says 
Bullinger, " they were drawn into the water and 
drowned." 

For these persecutions Zwingli stands condemned be- 
fore the bar of history. As the burning of Servetus has 
left an eternal stain on the good name of Calvin, in spite 
of all attempts to explain away his responsibility for the 
dark deed, so the drowning of Mantz is a damning blot 
on Zwingli's career as a reformer. All the perfumes of 
Arabia will not sweeten the hand that has been stained 
with the blood of one of Christ's martyrs. If Zwingli 
did not take an active part in the condemnation of Mantz, 
if he did not fully approve the savage measures of the 
council, he did approve of the suppression of Anabap- 
tism by the civil power. There is no record of protest 
of his, by voice or pen, against the barbarous cruelties 



140 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

inflicted in the name of pure religion on so many of 
God's people, though his influence would have been all- 
powerful in restraining the council from passing their 
persecuting edicts. He cannot be acquitted, therefore, of 
moral complicity in this judicial murder. Though not 
personally a persecutor, he stood by, like Saul at the 
stoning of Stephen, approving by silence all that was 
done. 

Grebel was spared the fate of Mantz by an untimely 
death. His fiery spirit made him a natural leader of 
men, and at Schaffhausen, at St. Gall, at Hinwyl, and at 
many other places, he preached the gospel with great 
power and gathered large numbers of converts into 
churches. His labors continued little more than three 
years, and his name appears in the Zurich records for 
the last time early in March, 1526. All that we know 
of him further is that he died, probably soon after, of 
the pest. Had he lived a few years longer, his fitness 
for leadership would have given him a large following 
among his countrymen, the character of the Swiss Ref- 
ormation might have been radically changed, and the 
history of Switzerland turned into a new channel for all 
time. Hubmaier was banished, to meet his martyrdom 
elsewhere. Blaurock was burned at the stake at Claus- 
sen, in the Tyrol, in 1529. Hatzer, driven out of Zurich, 
went to Strassburg for a time, but being banished thence 
made his way to Constance, where he was apprehended, 
imprisoned for four months and then put to death. The 
formal charge against him was bigamy. He is said in 
some accounts to have had twenty-four wives, according 
to others he had nineteen, while some content themselves 
with saying vaguely " a great many." In the trial record 
at Constance he is said to have confessed that he mar- 
ried his wife's maid while his wife still lived. There is 
not a line of confirmatory evidence in the correspondence 



GREBEL AND THE SWISS ANABAPTISTS I4I 

between Zwingli and his friends at Constance, nor in 
a contemporary account of Hatzer's last moments by 
an eye-witness. His death was after a godly manner, 
and the account says : " A nobler and more manful death 
was never seen in Constance. He suffered with greater 
propriety than I had given him credit for. They who 
knew not that he was a heretic and an Anabaptist could 
have observed nothing in him. . . May the Almighty, 
the Eternal God, grant to me and to the servants of his 
word like mercy in the day when he shall call us home." 

This is not the way in which adulterers and vulgar 
scoundrels die. Dr. Keller pronounces the charge 
against Hatzer " an unproved and unprovable statement." 
Resting as it does on an [alleged] confession that is 
wholly unconfirmed, the official charge is to be regarded 
as a calumny invented to conceal the fact that there was 
no fault found in him save that he was an Anabaptist. 

Thus one by one the leaders were killed or driven 
away or died by natural causes. By this means the per- 
secutors at length attained their end. Though persecu- 
tion at first increased the number of Anabaptists, they 
were for the most part plain, unlettered folk, rich in 
nothing else than faith, and little able to hold out un- 
aided and unled against a persecution so bitter and de- 
termined. Gradually the Anabaptists disappeared from 
the annals of Zurich, but not without having left the 
impress of their character on the people. 

While the canton of Zurich was measurably successful 
in suppressing the Anabaptist movement, it proved to 
have a greater quality of permanence elsewhere. The 
Anabaptists of Bern are less prominent during the time of 
Zwingli than those of Zurich, perhaps because there was 
no reformer at Bern of the ability and literary activity 
manifested by Zwingli at Zurich and by (Ecolampadius 
at Basel. There is even better reason than the history 



142 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of the Zurich movement discloses for supposing that 
these Anabaptists were the direct descendants of the 
Waldensian groups that for two or three centuries had 
leavened parts of Switzerland with their influence. 

Except that we have less explicit accounts of the 
formal organization of the sect, the history of the Ber- 
nese Anabaptists is precisely parallel with that of their 
Zurich brethren, down to the disappearance of the latter. 
There appears to be no essential difference in doctrine 
and practice, if we except the fact that no evidence of 
immersion is found in Bern. There is the same active, 
relentless persecution by the council, but it does not ap- 
pear that the death penalty was inflicted in this canton. 
But the result of these persecutions was very different 
from what we have found in Zurich. The Bern Ana- 
baptists had less able leaders at first, and consequently 
may have been less dependent upon leadership. What is 
certain is that the Bernese authorities themselves regret- 
fully recognized the impotence of their persecuting 
measures to suppress the movement. Causes for the in- 
crease of these people, rather than their diminution, were 
found by contemporaries in the lax enforcement of the 
laws by magistrates; in the lack of pious and godly liv- 
ing among the ministers and people of the town ; and in 
the failure of discipline in the churches. The Anabaptists 
are acknowledged to be more sober, God-fearing, and 
honest than others, and their preachers expounded the 
Scriptures more faithfully. Nevertheless, it was believed 
that such people as these were dangerous and should not 
be tolerated. 

Persecution of the Anabaptists in Bern continued dur- 
ing the seventeenth century, and through the influence 
of their fellow-believers in Holland, the Mennonites, the 
Dutch government several times intervened to secure lib- 
erty of conscience for these long-suffering people. There 



GREBEL AND THE SWISS ANABAPTISTS I43 

were not wanting also Swiss Christians to protest against 
the inhuman and un-Christian policy of the government. 
Though these efforts were not immediately successful, 
the persecutions grew less severe with each successive 
generation and in the eighteenth century gradually 
ceased. 

In the meantime, however, large numbers of the Ber- 
nese Anabaptists had emigrated in order to escape their 
bitter persecutions. Not a few came to America. The 
colony that settled in Lancaster County, Pa., from 171 5 
onward, though commonly called Mennonites, was com- 
posed largely of these refugees from Bern. Others set- 
tled in the Palatinate and other German States in which 
some measure of toleration was allowed. But a consid- 
erable number refused to leave their native land, endured 
all the persecutions, and their descendants are found in 
Bern to this day. Still called Wiedertduffer (Anabap- 
tists) and sometimes simply T duffer (Baptists), they 
hold the precise doctrines of the medieval evangelicals, 
and the practices of the sixteenth century Anabaptists. 
They baptize only believers, but most of them still prac- 
tise affusion, though the practice of immersion is said to 
be spreading among them. They refuse to bear arms 
and prohibit oaths. A part of them formed a separate 
body in 1830, and are known as New Baptists, because 
they practise immersion exclusively. Eight of the older 
congregations are members of a Conference, or Asso- 
ciation, which meets semi-annually, but there are some 
other churches not members of this body. They publish 
a paper called " Zion's Pilger," and there seems every 
prospect that they will continue to increase in numbers 
and influence. 

The teachings of the Swiss Anabaptists are accurately 
known to us from three independent and mutually con- 
firmatory sources : The testimony of their opponents, the 



144 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

fragments of their writings that remain, and their Con- 
fession of Faith. The latter is the first document of its 
kind known to be in existence. It was issued in 1527 by 
the " brotherly union of certain believing, baptized chil- 
dren of God," assembled at Schleitheim, a little village 
near Schaffhausen. The author is conjectured to have 
been Michael Sattler, of whom we know little more than 
that he was an ex-monk, of highly esteemed character, 
who suffered martyrdom at Rothenberg in the same year 
this confession was issued, his tongue being torn out, his 
body lacerated with red-hot tongs, and then burned. 

The Confession is not a complete system of doctrine, 
but treats the following topics : baptism, excommunica- 
tion, breaking of bread, separation from abominations, 
shepherds in the congregation, sword (civil government), 
oaths. It teaches the baptism of believers only, the 
breaking of bread by those alone who have been bap- 
tized, and inculcates a pure church discipline. It for- 
bids a Christian to be a magistrate, but does not absolve 
him from obedience to the civil law ; it pronounces oaths 
sinful. With the exception of the last two points — in 
which the modern Friends have followed the Anabaptists 
in interpreting the Scriptures — the Schleitheim Con- 
fession corresponds with the beliefs avowed by Baptist 
churches to-day. It is significant that what is opprobri- 
ously called " close " communion is found to be the 
teaching of the oldest Baptist document in existence. 

With this Confession agrees the testimony of Zwingli 
and other bitter opponents of the Anabaptists. The only 
fault charged against them by their contemporaries, that 
is supported by evidence, is that they had the courage 
and honesty to interpret the Scriptures as Baptists to-day 
interpret them. Of their deep piety there is as little doubt 
as there is of the cruelty with which that piety was 
punished as a crime against God and man. 



CHAPTER XI 

ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY 

THE name Anabaptist stands in the literature of the 
Lutheran Reformation as a synonym for the ex- 
tremest errors of doctrine, and the wildest excesses of 
conduct. The Anabaptists were denounced by their con- 
temporaries, Romanist and Protestant alike, with a rhet- 
oric so sulphurous that an evil odor has clung to the 
name ever since. If one were to believe the half that he 
reads about these heretics, he would be compelled to think 
them the most depraved of mankind. Nothing was too 
vile to be ascribed to them, nothing was too wicked to 
be believed about them — nothing, in fact, was incredible, 
except one had described them as God-fearing, pious folk, 
studious of the Scriptures, and obedient to the will of 
their Lord, as that will was made known. The masses 
of the Anabaptists, as of the Lutherans, were uncultured 
people; but among their leaders were men unsurpassed 
in their times for knowledge of the original Scriptures, 
breadth of mind, and fervidness of eloquence. Historians 
of their own land and race are beginning to do these 
men tardy justice. The day is not far distant when 
historical scholarship will prepare a complete vindication 
of the men so maligned. In the meantime, enough is 
already known to set right many erroneous statements 
that have been handed down from historian to historian 
for centuries, and accepted as undoubtedly true without 
re-investigation. 

As in Switzerland, so in Germany, hardly had the Ref- 
ormation begun when we find mention of Anabaptists. 

k 145 



I46 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

But there is this difference : while the name in Swit- 
zerland denoted a party essentially homogeneous in 
faith and practice, the name Anabaptist is applied in 
Germany to men of widely divergent views and acts. It 
was, in fact, a convenient epithet of opprobrium, care- 
lessly bestowed by the dominant party on those who 
opposed them and so aroused their displeasure. Just as 
now anybody who holds advanced views about the State 
and its functions, thereby differing from the orthodox 
political faith, is called by hasty and superficial people 
" anarchist " or " socialist " (though he may repudiate 
both titles), so then anybody who dissented from ortho- 
doxy and would not conform to the State Church was 
likely to be called " Anabaptist." Many who are called 
by this title in Reformation literature were never Ana- 
baptists, but practised Pedobaptism as consistently as any 
Lutheran or Romanist of them all. Others who were 
so far Anabaptists as to have rejected infant baptism, 
had not grasped the principle on which rejection of infant 
baptism properly rests, the spiritual constitution of the 
church. 

Even when the name Anabaptist is properly applied, it 
does not necessarily connote evangelical beliefs and prac- 
tice. Any Christians who have re-baptized, for what- 
ever reason, may be called by that title. The Donatists 
were Anabaptists, but they baptized those who came to 
them because of a supposed defect in the " orders " of 
the Catholic priesthood. Baptists have affinity only with 
such Anabaptists as hold to the theory of a regenerate 
church, reject infant baptism as a nullity, and re-baptize 
on profession of faith those baptized in unconscious in- 
fancy. These distinctions must be borne in mind by 
one who would read intelligently about the German 
Anabaptists. 

The seemingly sudden appearance of the Anabaptists 



ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY 147 

and their rapid growth in Germany is a remarkable phe- 
nomenon — one of the strangest things in history if we re- 
fuse to look below the surface. Some historians insist 
that the Anabaptists had no previous existence ; that it is 
in vain to look back of the first mention of them for 
their origin. But this is to say that an event occurred 
without an adequate cause. No sect or party in the his- 
tory of the world ever made such an extraordinary 
growth as the Anabaptists made during the early years 
of the Reformation unless it had a previous history. 
We have seen in previous chapters how Central Europe 
was leavened by evangelical teachings. The writings of 
the medieval Fathers are full of complaints of the ex- 
tent to which the various heresies had corrupted the 
people. Making all due allowance for exaggeration 
(where there was little temptation to exaggerate and 
nothing whatever to be gained by it) the conclusion can- 
not be resisted that the persistence of what the Catholic 
Church pronounced heresy, but what we should call evan- 
gelical truth, was complete throughout Central Europe 
during the three centuries preceding the Reformation. 
This truth was doubtless mixed with no little error, in 
some cases, but error less deadly than that taught by 
the Roman Church. For, with all their deviations from 
the gospel truth, the heretical sects taught a spiritual 
religion, not a religion of forms and ceremonies — they 
were loyal to the idea of salvation by faith, not salvation 
by works. The name Anabaptist we do not meet, as 
applied to any of these sects before the Reformation; 
but the Anabaptist party of the Reformation period had 
its roots in these preexistent sects, and found in their 
remnants the materials for its surprising growth. To 
doubt this is, as before remarked, to assume that so 
great a result — almost unparalleled in the history of 
Christianity — had no adequate cause, which is irrational. 



I48 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

It is commonly said that the first appearance of Ana- 
baptism in Germany was in 1521, at Zwickau, on the 
border of Bohemia. Certain " prophets " here made a 
great stir. These prophets were Nicholas Storch, a 
weaver, but a man of marked ability and well versed in 
the Scriptures ; Marcus Stiibner, who had been a student 
at Wittenberg; and Marcus Thoma, evidently a man of 
some learning, since a letter written in Latin is extant, 
in which he is addressed as " a learned man " ( erudito 
viro). Of Thomas Miinzer, the writer of the letter, 
we shall see more hereafter; it suffices the present pur- 
pose to say that he joined himself to these prophets for 
ends of his own, and that though with them for a time, 
he was never of them. 

The prophets being driven out of Zwickau, made their 
way to Wittenberg, where Carlstadt and Melanchthon 
received them with favor; but Luther was greatly dis- 
turbed by their ascendency, returned from his " cap- 
tivity " at the Wartburg, and by preaching a series of 
violent sermons recovered the direction of affairs. The 
prophets accordingly had to depart, and we hear little 
more of them. Ever since it has been the fashion among 
the church historians, following the lead of the Luther- 
ans, to represent the Zwickau Anabaptists as a band of 
fanatics and disturbers of the peace, misled by a belief 
in their own prophetic inspiration and believing them- 
selves endowed with a gift of tongues. The contem- 
porary literature, however, gives no support to this view. 
A strong tinge of mysticism is, indeed, found in their 
reported teachings, but of fanaticism, or encouragement 
of civil disorder, there is no trace. These prophets had 
precisely such visions, opening to them (as they believed) 
the secrets of the spiritual world, as Swedenborg and 
George Fox enjoyed. They seem, indeed, to have been 
the precursors of the modern Friends, so spiritualizing 



ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY I49 

the church as to reject the priesthood, water baptism, 
and all outward ceremonies of religion. They were not 
Anabaptists, for they did not baptize, yet they were at 
one with the Anabaptists in holding that the unregenerate 
have no place in the church of Christ. 

It is difficult, if not impossible, in the present state of 
research, to set definite bounds for the beginning of 
Anabaptist churches in Germany. What we know is 
that two men were influential above others in promoting 
the Anabaptist movement : Balthasar Hiibmaier and John 
Denck. 

Hiibmaier was born about the year 148 1, in Fried- 
burg, Bavaria. The name of his birthplace (of which 
the English equivalent would be Peacemont), sometimes 
done into Latin after the fashion of the learned in those 
days, furnished a surname often used by him in his writ- 
ings — Friedburger or Pacimontanus. Nothing definite 
is known of his family, whose name may be taken to 
imply that they were small tenant-farmers. 1 The lad was 
sent at an early age to the Latin school at Augsburg, 
and thence he went to the University of Freiburg, where 
he matriculated in 1503. His studies here were diligent 
and successful, but were interrupted by his going to 
Schaffhausen as a teacher, to earn means to prosecute 
his work at the university. He returned and took the 
master's degree in 151 1. So high was his proficiency 
that he was regarded as a "promising young man, and 
was advised to study medicine, then a profitable career. 
But he decided to devote himself to theology, saying: 
" Her alone have I chosen, her before all others have I 
selected, and for her will I prepare a cell in my heart." 

At Freiburg he met two men who had much to do 
with his subsequent career. John Heigelin, or Faber, 
and John Meyer, better known as Eck. The former was 

1 Hubmaier-Hubel (provincial for Hugel) meier, " the farmer of the bill," 



I50 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

a fellow-student, the latter his most influential teacher. 
A dispute arose between Eck and the faculty of the 
university, and Hiibmaier warmly espoused the cause of 
his teacher and friend, and followed Eck to the Uni- 
versity of Ingolstadt on his removal thither. Here Hub- 
maier's rise was rapid. He was given a chair of theology 
and appointed university preacher, and finally ( 1515 ) 
vice-rector of the university. 

The crisis of his fate was now at hand. In 1 5 16 he 
was called to be pastor at the cathedral of Ratisbon. 
This removed him from the overshadowing influence of 
Eck and gave him chance for independent study and 
growth of character. He seems, even thus early, to have 
become an ardent and profound student of the Scrip- 
tures. As a scholar he was the equal of Luther, 
though not the peer perhaps of Melanchthon and Eras- 
mus. He soon became renowned as one of the most elo- 
quent preachers of his time. So far as we can know, he 
led a pure life and was sincerely pious, though still in 
error. With such talents there was no position in the 
church to which he might not aspire. But when the 
Reformation began, it seems to have appealed at once 
to his mind, if not to his heart ; and it was not long before 
a brilliant career in the church seemed less attractive than 
to follow the truth. 

Resigning his position, he went to Schaffhausen, where 
he had formerly made friends, and here he possibly 
hoped to take an active part in the Swiss Reformation. 
Soon after we find him pastor at Waldshut, just over the 
Swiss border in the province of Austria. He did not 
for a time break with the Church of Rome, and observed 
all the Catholic forms in his new parish. Whether he 
had not yet become fully convinced of Romish errors, 
or hesitated to make a breach with the church, in the 
hope that it was capable of a gradual reformation, it 




Page 150 



Balthasar Hubmaier 



ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY 151 

would be profitless to guess. There is a vacillation about 
his conduct just at this part of his life that is difficult 
to explain on any theory. He was even recalled to Ratis- 
bon, to a new charge there, and accepted this invita- 
tion in November, 1522, but without resigning Waldshut, 
to which he returned the following March. From this 
time on he seems definitely to have cast in his lot with 
the reformers. 

In May, 1523, Hubmaier visited Zurich and formed 
a close connection with Zwingli. The latter was in the 
beginning of his career as a reformer, and inclined to go 
to the full lengths demanded by his principle of making 
the Scriptures the sole rule of faith and practice. Htib- 
maier clearly perceived that this necessitated the aban- 
donment of infant baptism, and Zwingli assented. In his 
writings and sermons of this period Zwingli did not hesi- 
tate to make the same avowal. It was not, however, for 
two years thereafter that Hubmaier acted on that con- 
clusion, and by that time Zwingli had begun to draw 
back from it altogether. At the second Zurich disputa- 
tion (October 26, 1523), Hubmaier was, next to Zwingli 
himself, the most prominent disputant; and having thus 
avowed himself a full believer in the Reformation, he 
became henceforth its firm and consistent supporter. 

Hitherto his acts at Waldshut had been those of a 
trimmer, or, at least, of one whose course was undecided. 
On his return, he submitted to the clergy and deanery 
of Waldshut eighteen articles of religion, in which he 
upheld justification by faith alone, taught that the mass 
is not a sacrifice, but simply a memorial of the death of 
Christ, and denounced images, purgatory, celibacy of the 
clergy, and other Roman errors. Only three of thirty 
priests sided with him, but he had better success with 
the citizens. He gradually began to change the service, 
first reading the Epistles and Gospels in German, and 



152 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

later giving the cup to all communicants. Some oppo- 
sition was roused, and just before Whitsunday he re- 
signed his office, but was reelected pastor by the almost 
unanimous votes of the parish. The Bishop of Con- 
stance, hearing of these acts, summoned Hiibmaier be- 
fore him, but no attention was paid to the summons, the 
reformer saying, " It would be a little thing for me to 
stand before that hypocrite." The Austrian Diet, out- 
raged by these proceedings, demanded the surrender of 
Hiibmaier, and though the citizens of Waldshut stoutly 
refused to give up their pastor, he thought it better to 
leave the city. 

Accordingly, August 16, 1524, he sought refuge at 
Schaffhausen, where he wrote his tract, " Heretics and 
those who burn them," but in November he again re- 
turned to Waldshut. It was about this time that he be- 
came clearly convinced that infant baptism is contrary 
to the Scriptures, as we learn from a letter written 
by him to CEcolampadius, written January 16, 1525, 
in which there is an elaborate argument against the 
scripturalness of infant baptism. 

About this time he married a daughter of a Waldshut 
citizen, and during Lent he abolished the mass, which up 
to that time he had celebrated in German, had all pictures 
and altars removed from the churches, and the priests 
discarded vestments and wore henceforth ordinary cloth- 
ing. This was an imprudent step, no doubt, since it was 
almost sure to rouse Austria to violent measures against 
Waldshut, but fidelity to the truth seemed to Hiibmaier 
and his followers to demand that it be taken. 

A still graver step followed. Up to this time Hiib- 
maier had, indeed, been an Anabaptist in theory, but not 
in practice. In the spring of 1525 William Reublin, who 
had been compelled to leave Switzerland, came to Walds- 
hut, and through his instructions Hiibmaier became 



ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY 1 53 

convinced, not only that his baptism in infancy was a 
nullity, but that he ought to be baptized on personal 
confession of faith. Others were convinced with him, 
and at Easter Reublin baptized the Waldshut pastor and 
others (one authority says sixty, another one hundred 
and ten). Shortly after the pastor himself baptized three 
hundred of his flock. 

This action not only made Hiibmaier's position in 
Waldshut more difficult, by adding fuel to the flame of 
Austrian hatred, but speedily embroiled him with the 
Swiss reformers. The Anabaptists had become very 
troublesome in Bern, and a public disputation with them 
was held June 5, 1525. (Ecolampadius claimed the vic- 
tory and published his version of the debate. This did 
so little justice to the arguments of the Anabaptists that 
Hiibmaier was impelled to enter the lists, which he did 
by writing two tracts : the first, a dialogue " On the bap- 
tism of infants " was not published until some time later, 
when he had gone to Moravia ; but the other, " Concern- 
ing the Christian baptism of believers," appeared at once, 
and had a great effect. Zwingli retorted with great 
vehemence, not to say bitterness, in his celebrated treatise 
on " Baptism, Anabaptism, and infant baptism." From 
this time on the Swiss reformers, who had been so 
friendly to Hiibmaier, became his bitterest opponents. 

Affairs in Waldshut grew steadily worse, and a strong 
Catholic party was formed, which favored surrender of 
the city to the Austrians. Hiibmaier finally saw that his 
situation was an impossible one, and with forty-five of 
his adherents sought safety in flight. December 5, 1525, 
the city was captured by Austrian troops. Hiibmaier 
made his way to Zurich, not fully realizing how impla- 
cable an enemy he now had in Zwingli, and soon after his 
arrival was seized, imprisoned, and treated with great rig- 
or. Grebel, Mantz, and Blaurock had already preceded 



154 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

him to the prison, and it was the evident intention 
of the authorities to suppress Anabaptism by the most 
vigorous measures. A show of fairness was, however, 
still maintained. A public discussion was held December 
21, at the close of which Zwingli succeeded in wringing 
from the ill and enfeebled prisoner a promise to recon- 
sider his views. Ambassadors from Austria demanded 
the surrender of Hubmaier and, though Zurich refused, 
a different decision was possible at any time. Besides, it 
is now certain that torture was applied. At length a 
written recantation was obtained, and, after a confine- 
ment of several months, during which time he was loaded 
with heavy chains, he was released (June 6, 1526), on 
condition that he leave Switzerland. 

He made his way to Constance, thence to his old resi- 
dences of Ingoldstadt and Ratisbon, where friends re- 
ceived him kindly. He could not hope for safety in 
either of these towns, should his presence become gen- 
erally known, and he determined to seek an asylum in 
Moravia. About the end of June he arrived at Nikols- 
burg, in the domains of the lords of Lichtenstein, nobles 
who were known to be humane and tolerant. Here he 
began the most fruitful part of his labors. Though they 
occupied not more than fifteen months, their results were 
astonishing. He was incessant in his work as evangelist. 
Lord Leonhard of Lichtenstein himself soon became an 
Anabaptist, and the sect grew with amazing rapidity. 
An unfriendly historian estimates their numbers at this 
time at twelve thousand. Moravia had been well-sown 
with gospel truth by Waldenses and other evangelical 
preachers and the field was white to harvest when 
Hubmaier put in the sickle. 

He was equally busy with the pen. Tract after tract, 
not fewer than fifteen distinct writings in all, was written 
and printed during this period, and some tracts previously 



ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY 155 

composed now found their way to the public. They 
were scattered broadcast over Germany and Switzerland, 
and had an influence that it would not be easy to over- 
estimate. To this time belong his treatise on the Lord's 
Supper, his reply to Zwingli, his " Book of the Sword," 
" Form of Baptism," " Form of the Lord's Supper," 
" Freedom of the Human Will," etc. These were dedi- 
cated to the lords of Lichtenstein and other noble patrons, 
which certainly did not hinder their circulation. 

Though for a time there was no external opposition to 
this work of Hubmaier, it was not without certain diffi- 
culties from within. Hans Hut and Jacob Widemann 
were to Hubmaier what Hymenaeus and Alexander 
were to Paul — messengers of Satan to buffet him, thorns 
in the flesh. Hut was the more mischievous of the two. 
Beginning as a sacristan, then an artisan, afterwards im- 
bued with the spirit and teachings of Miinzer, he nar- 
rowly escaped from Miihlhausen with his life, to become 
a " prophet," a fanatic, a preacher of Chiliasm and the 
gospel of the sword. He proclaimed the speedy end of 
all mundane things, and first set as the date for this final 
event the day of the summer feast in 1529. Hubmaier 
stoutly resisted these men and preached and wrote 
against their false and demoralizing doctrines. A disputa- 
tion was held in the castle at Nikolsburg, but the re- 
sult was not decisive; both sides, as usual, claiming the 
victory. At length Hut was imprisoned by Lord Licht- 
enstein in the castle, but made his escape and preached 
his doctrines in various parts of Germany, especially at 
Augsburg, where he was put to death in 1529. Not a 
little of the responsibility for the growth of fanaticism 
among the Anabaptists must be laid at his door. The 
unity of the Nikolsburg church was fatally impaired, 
and the way was prepared for the final catastrophe. 

The Anabaptists in Moravia would never have been 






I56 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

unmolested so long, but that the country was in a most 
disorganized state. The Archduke Ferdinand had suc- 
ceeded in making good his title as Margrave of Moravia, 
and now determined to get possession of Hubmaier. Ex- 
actly how or when he accomplished his purpose we do 
not know, but as there is no record that the lords of 
Lichtenstein suffered any personal inconvenience it has 
been inferred that they surrendered the Anabaptist 
preacher to save themselves. Not later than September, 
1527, Hubmaier and his devoted wife were taken to 
Vienna and tried for heresy. During the process he 
asked for an interview with his old friend Faber, and the 
latter reported that he had made a partial recantation. 
On March 10, 1528, he was taken through the streets of 
the city to the public square, and his body was burned. 
So died one of the purest spirits of the Reformation. 
Three days later his wife, who had exhorted him in his last 
hour to endure steadfastly, was drowned in the Danube. 

Hubmaier was one of the Anabaptists against whom 
his enemies bring no charge of immorality or unchristian 
conduct. We may be sure they would have found or 
invented such charges against him had it been possible. 
He was eloquent, learned, zealous, a man in every way 
the equal (to say no more) of Luther, Zwingli, and Cal- 
vin. His name has been loaded with unjust reproaches; 
he has been accused of teaching things that his soul ab- 
horred ; but in spite of his weakness at Zurich he stands 
out one of the heroic figures of his age. 

Hubmaier was no mystic. He believed in no inner 
light other than the illumination of the Spirit of God 
that is given to every believer who walks close with God. 
His appeal on all disputed points is not to this internal 
witness of the Spirit, for which other voices might be 
mistaken, but to the written word of God which cannot 
err. To the law and the testimony he referred every 



ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY 1 57 

doubtful question, and by the decision thus reached, he 
loyally abided. 

Another leader of this time, John Denck, was a man 
of different mental cast. Singularly little is known of 
his early history: the place and time of his birth are 
uncertain, and of his parentage and family we can learn 
as little — we cannot say definitely whether he had brother 
or sister, wife or child. He is thought to have been a 
native of Bavaria, about the year 1495. We first get 
definite knowledge of him as an attendant on the lectures 
of CEcolampadius at Basel, in 1523, where he took the 
degree of Master of Arts. Shortly after he became head 
master of the school of St. Sebald, in the free imperial 
city of Nuremberg. He had evidently adopted evangelical 
views before going to Basel, but he was from the first 
neither a Zwinglian nor a Lutheran, but took a line of 
his own. Nuremberg had, however, become a Lutheran 
town under the lead of Osiander, and it was not long be- 
fore Denck's teachings were found to harmonize ill with 
those of Luther, especially as to the freedom of the will. 
He was summoned before the authorities, made a Con- 
fession of Faith, and this was adjudged so heretical that 
he was condemned to banishment. 

This Confession has been recently discovered in the 
archives of the city, and interpreted by Doctor Keller. It 
plainly appears that Denck held the theological views 
with which the name of Arminius became later identified. 
He admits the existence of original or inherited sin, but 
denies total depravity; on the contrary, he says, a germ 
of good exists in man. Men are so far from being 
utterly depraved that every man has in him a ray of the 
divine light, which he could recognize and follow if he 
would. To follow this light, to obey the divine will, is 
the essence of faith, and by such faith alone is one justi- 
fied. There is a working together of the divine and 



I58 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

human in salvation. Faith is not mere belief, but the 
conformity of our will to the will of God. Scripture is 
not the sole foundation for faith, for there were men of 
faith before the Scriptures. Man must first of all be- 
lieve in God as revealed in his own conscience, and then 
he will believe in the external revelation, finding the two 
to harmonize. The witness of the Spirit confirms the 
witness of the Scriptures — this inner word testifying to 
the truth of the external word — and only he who has the 
illumination of the Spirit can understand the Scriptures. 

It will be seen from this brief account of his teachings 
that Denck's theology, as held at this time, was irrecon- 
cilable with that of Luther in the fundamental doctrines 
of human nature, freedom of the will, faith, and justifi- 
cation, to say nothing of the authority of the Scriptures. 
A city that had declared itself for Luther and his doctrine 
could hardly be expected, in those times, to tolerate so 
pronounced dissent from the official faith. 

In June, 1525, we find Denck was at St. Gall. He was 
not yet a professed Anabaptist; possibly up to this time 
he had not heard of the doctrines of this party. He 
could hardly fail to hear of them now and to be favorably 
impressed by them. This would account for his going 
next to Augsburg, which was already an Anabaptist 
center. A visit of Hubmaier to the city in the following 
year decided him to become an Anabaptist, and he was 
himself baptized by Hubmaier. From this time the Ana- 
baptists in Augsburg grew rapidly, until they are said 
to have numbered eleven hundred, many of the prominent 
people of the city joining them. The Augsburg Ana- 
baptists, as we know from a contemporary eye-witness, 
practised immersion. Their piety was acknowledged 
even by their opponents and persecutors, though these 
maintained that it was a work of the devil, and called it 
" a sort of carnival-play of a holy apostolic life, fitted 



ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY 159 

to make the gospel hateful." At a synod in this city, 
held in the autumn of 1527, at which Denck presided, it 
was decided that Christians ought not to obtain power or 
redress of grievances by unlawful means, that is, by the 
sword. 

Partly urged by his restless spirit, partly compelled by 
danger of imprisonment and death, Denck spent his last 
years in rapidly moving from place to place. We find 
traces of his presence at Strassburg, Worms, Zurich, 
Schaffhausen, and Constance. His last days were passed 
at Basel, where he died in the autumn of 1527, of the 
plague. The exact time of his death and the place of his 
burial are unknown. 

His contemporaries unite in praising Denck's brilliant 
talents and exemplary life. " In Denck, that distin- 
guished young man," says Vadian, " were all talents so 
extraordinarily developed that he surpassed his years, and 
appeared greater than himself." He was of handsome 
and imposing appearance, and hence was called " the 
Apollo of the Anabaptists." His eloquence was cele- 
brated, and his learning surpassed his eloquence. His 
work as translator and author was of high quality. His 
translation of the Hebrew prophets, made in connection 
with Hatzer, preceded Luther's by several years, and was 
freely drawn upon by the latter, which is one testimony 
among many to its merit. Denck was, however, a mys- 
tic ; his mental and spiritual affinities were with such men 
as Tauler and Thomas a Kempis. He would have hailed 
George Fox as a brother in the Lord. His belief in the 
sufficiency and supremacy of the inner light not only led 
him into some doctrinal vagaries, but had a very mis- 
chievous effect upon his followers. The charge that he 
did not believe in the divinity of Christ, Doctor Keller 
thinks is unproved; but it is admitted that he believed 
in the final restoration of mankind. Denck's writings are 



160 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

remarkable for their mild polemics in an age when sav- 
age denunciation and personal abuse of opponents too 
often took the place of argument. He was one of the 
most influential thinkers in Germany, and probably had 
in the South and West a greater following than Luther, 
in recognition of which fact his opponents not infre- 
quently called him " the Anabaptist pope." The influence 
of his work was felt for many years after his untimely 
death. 

Two views of civil government had been thus far con- 
tending for the mastery among the Anabaptists. One is 
that of the Schleitheim Confession, which defines the 
sword as " an ordinance of God outside of the perfection 
of Christ . . . ordained over the wicked for punish- 
ment and death," and forbids Christians to serve as mag- 
istrates. A very considerable part of the Anabaptists ad- 
vocated those principles of non-resistance that have been 
professed by the Friends of later date. Hubmaier and 
Denck differed from this view in part. They held that the 
Scriptures direct men to perform their duties as citizens ; 
that Christians may lawfully bear the sword as magis- 
trates, and execute the laws, save in persecution of others. 
In his tract on the " Christian Baptism of Believers," 
Hubmaier says : " We confess openly that there should be 
secular government that should bear the sword. This we 
are willing and bound to obey in everything that is not 
against God." In his treatise " On the Sword " he defines 
and distinguishes civil and religious powers, pointing out 
the true relations of Church and State, with a clearness 
that a modern Baptist might well imitate, but could not 
excel. " In matters of faith," said Denck, " everything 
must be left free, willing, and unforced." Hubmaier de- 
nounced persecution in his " Heretics and Those Who 
Burn Them," written at Schaffhausen before he had by 
his rebaptism fully ranged himself with the Anabaptists: 



ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY l6l 

Those who are heretics one should overcome with holy knowl- 
edge, not angrily but softly. . . If they will not be taught 
by strong proofs, or evangelical reasons, let them be mad, that 
those that are filthy may be more filthy still . . . This is the 
will of Christ, who said, " Let both grow together till the harvest, 
lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with 
them ! " . . Hence it follows that the inquisitors are the great- 
est heretics of all, since they against the doctrine and example 
of Christ condemn heretics to fire, and before the time of harvest 
root up the wheat with the tares . . . And now it is clear to 
every one, even the blind, that a law to burn heretics is an 
invention of the devil. Truth is immortal. 

These disconnected sentences give an idea of the course 
of thought through his brief tract, which is written with 
a fire that may well have stirred to wrath the persecutors 
whom it arraigned. 

The Anabaptists of this period were the only men of 
their time who had grasped the principle of civil and 
religious liberty. That men ought not to be persecuted 
on account of their religious beliefs was a necessary cor- 
ollary from their idea of the nature of the church. A 
spiritual body, consisting only of the regenerate, could 
not seek to add to itself by force those who were unre- 
generate. No Anabaptist could become a persecutor 
without first surrendering this fundamental conviction; 
and though a few of them appear to have done this, they 
ceased to be properly classed as Anabaptists the moment 
they forgot the saying of Christ, " My kingdom is not of 
this world." * 

It remains to tell the disgraceful story of the treatment 
of the German Anabaptists. Luther began his career as 
a reformer with brave words in favor of the rights of 
conscience and religious liberty. At Worms he said: 
" Unless I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of 
the Scriptures or by clear arguments (since I believe 
neither the pope nor councils alone ; it being evident that 

L 



l62 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I 
am conquered by the Holy Scriptures quoted by me, and 
my conscience is bound in the word of God: I cannot 
and will not recant anything, since it is unsafe and dan- 
gerous to do anything against the conscience." But 
later, when the Anabaptists took precisely this position, 
Luther assails them with exactly the arguments brought 
against him at Worms, which he so boldly rejected: 

If every one now is allowed to handle the faith so as to intro- 
duce into the Scriptures his own fancies, and then expound them 
according to his own understanding, and cares to find only what 
natters the populace and the senses, certainly not a single article 
of faith could stand. It is dangerous, yes terrible, in the highest 
degree, to hear or believe anything against the faith and doctrine 
of the entire Christian church. He who doubts any article that 
the church has believed from the beginning continually, does 
not believe in the Christian church, and not only condemns the 
entire Christian church as an accursed heretic, but condemns 
even Christ himself, with all the apostles who established that 
article of the church and corroborated it, and that beyond 
contradiction. 

There was a similar change in Luther's opinions re- 
garding the treatment proper for heretics. In his address 
to the Christian nobility of Germany (1520) he said: 
" We should overcome heretics with books, not with fire, 
as the old Fathers did. If there were any skill in over- 
coming heretics with fire, the executioner would be the 
most learned doctor in the world ; and there would be no 
need to study, but he that could get another into his 
power could burn him." The same ideas are set forth 
in the tract on Secular Magistracy (1523) : " No one can 
command the soul, or ought to command it, except God, 
who alone can show it the way to heaven. . . It is 
futile and impossible to command or by force compel any 
man's belief. . . Heresy is a spiritual thing that no 
iron can hew down, no fire burn, no water drown. . . 



ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY 163 

Belief is a free thing that cannot be enforced." Luther 
even retained these sentiments, at least in the abstract, as 
late as 1527, for in a treatise written in that year against 
the Anabaptists, he said : " It is not right, and I am very 
sorry, that such wretched people should be so miserably 
murdered, burned, and cruelly killed. Every one should 
be allowed to believe what he pleases. If his belief is 
wrong he will have sufficient penalty in the eternal fire of 
hell. Why should they be made martyrs in this world 
also? . . . With the Scripture and God's word we 
should oppose and resist them; with fire we can 
accomplish little." 

Yet such excellent sentiments as these did not prevent 
Luther from advising John, Elector of Saxony, to restrain 
by force the Anabaptists from propagating their doctrines 
within his domains. A decree issued by that prince in 
1528, on the plea that the Anabaptists were seducing 
simple-minded folk into disobedience to God's word, by 
preachings and disputations, through books and writings, 
commanded that " no one — whether noble, burgher, peas- 
ant, or of whatever rank he may be, except the regular 
pastors ... to whom is committed in every place 
the care of souls and preaching — is permitted to preach 
and baptize, or to buy and read forbidden books ; but that 
every one who learns of such doings shall make them 
known to the magistrate of the place where they occur, in 
order that these persons may be brought to prison and 
justice." It was made the duty of every one to seize 
and deliver such offenders to the court; and whoever 
should fail to do so, did it at peril of body and goods. 
Whoever received such persons into their houses or gave 
them any assistance, should be treated as abettors and ad- 
herents. The Protestants are therefore entitled to the 
distinction of beginning the persecution of the German 
Anabaptists. 



164 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

We cannot wonder that the Catholics followed this ex- 
ample. At the Diet of Speyer, in 1529, when the German 
princes and representatives of the free cities presented 
their famous protest, in which, in the name of religious 
liberty they claimed the right to force the reformed faith 
upon their unwilling Catholic subjects, while they spoke 
also a faint-hearted plea for the Zwinglians, they had no 
good word for the Anabaptists. The Diet at this session 
passed a stringent decree against these people : "All Ana- 
baptists and rebaptized persons, male or female, of ma- 
ture age, shall be judged and brought from natural life 
to death, by fire, or sword or otherwise, as may befit the 
persons, without preceding trial by spiritual judges. . . 
Such persons as of themselves, or after instruction, at 
once confess their error, and are willing to undergo pen- 
ance and chastisement therefor, and pray for clemency, 
these may be pardoned by their government as may befit 
their standing, conduct, youth, and general circumstances. 
We will also that all of their children according to Chris- 
tian order, usage, and rite shall be baptized in their 
youth. Whoever shall despise this, and will not do it, 
in the belief that there should be no baptism of children, 
shall, if he persists in that course, be held to be an 
Anabaptist, and shall be subjected to our above-named 
constitution." 

This decree was formally binding on all the States of 
the empire, Protestant as well as Catholic, but there was 
of course great latitude in its practical enforcement. 
Most of the Protestant princes, like the Elector of Sax- 
ony and the Landgrave of Hesse, while greatly desirous 
of suppressing the Anabaptists, had invincible scruples 
against persecuting to the death those who, like them- 
selves, claimed to be following conscience and Scrip- 
ture. In such domains, fines, imprisonment, and banish- 
ment were inflicted, but not death. The free cities were 



ANABAPTISM IN GERMANY 165 

still less stringent, and seem to have moved against the 
Anabaptists only when their numbers became so great as 
to alarm the authorities. Indeed, these cities became the 
chief refuge of the Anabaptists in the storm of persecu- 
tion that raged against them after 1529. In the Catho- 
lic States they were pursued with implacable severity, and 
one chronicler (Sebastian Franck, d. 1542) estimates that 
two thousand or more were put to death at this time. 
In the Palatinate the persecution was not less severe 
than in the Catholic States, for three hundred and fifty 
are said to have perished there. 

Cornelius, though writing as a Roman Catholic, yet 
also as a conscientious historian, thus sums up the results 
of these persecutions : 

In Tyrol and Gorz, the number of the executions in the 
year 1531 already reached one thousand; in Ensisheim, six hun- 
dred. At Linz, seventy-three were killed in six weeks. Duke 
William, of Bavaria, surpassing all others, issued the fearful de- 
cree to behead those who recanted, to burn those who refused 
to recant. Throughout the greater part of upper Germany the 
persecutions raged like a wild chase. The blood of these poor 
people flowed like water; so that they cried to the Lord for 
help. But hundreds of them, of all ages and both sexes, suffered 
the pangs of torture without a murmur, despised to buy their 
lives by recantation, and went to the place of execution joyful 
and singing Psalms. 1 

Some of the recent apologists for these cruelties have 
said that there was at least a partial justification for such 
wholesale executions in the suspicion that the Anabap- 
tists were not merely heretics, but traitors — revolution- 
ists, advocates of sedition, as dangerous to the State as 
to religion. It is perhaps a sufficient answer to this plea 
to remark that none of the contemporary documents bring 
this charge against the Anabaptists. In the preambles of 
the various decrees issued against them, in the statement 

1 " Geschichte des Munsterischen Aufruhrs," Vol. II., p. 57 seq. 



l66 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of their offenses nothing is found but their errors in 
religious faith and practice. If they were suspected of 
being politically dangerous up to 1529, it is remarkable 
that no trace of such suspicion should appear in any of- 
ficial action taken against them. It may be properly 
added that up to this time neither the acts nor the teach- 
ings of the Anabaptists afforded a plausible pretext for 
the State to treat them as seditious. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE OUTBREAK OF FANATICISM 

PERSECUTION and oppression have a tendency to 
develop manifestations of fanatical zeal in the op- 
pressed and persecuted. History affords many instances 
of this principle, and nowhere perhaps is its working bet- 
ter illustrated than in Germany in the sixteenth century. 
The movement that we call the Reformation was a com- 
plex series of phenomena, social, political, and religious; 
and hardly had Luther begun his labors as a religious 
reformer, when another group of men began to agitate 
for far-reaching social reforms. These were the spokes- 
men of the peasants, the most miserable class of the 
German people. 

The condition of the peasantry of Germany was rapidly 
changing for the worse during the sixteenth century. 
This was owing to the complete social revolution then in 
progress which we call the decay of feudalism. Many 
causes had been at work to disintegrate the feudal system, 
but none had been so powerful as the invention of gun- 
powder. The day when foot-soldiers of the peasant class 
were armed with muskets was the day of doom for feudal- 
ism. The old superiority of the armored knight was 
gone; battles were no longer contests of cavalry; once 
more infantry came to the front. As the man with the 
hoe, the peasant was still despised; as the man with the 
gun he compelled respect. 

The political and social supremacy of the nobles had 
rested on their military power. So long as the armored 
knight was able to contend single-handed against a score 

167 



l68 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

and even a hundred ill-armed peasants in leather jerkins, 
so long he was powerful both to punish and to protect. 
The weak instinctively seek the protection of the strong, 
even when a high price must be paid for the favor, for 
it is better to give a part to one's overlord than to lose 
all to another. The nobility had been tolerated and even 
upheld because they were necessary to society. They 
had been permitted to usurp much power, social privilege, 
wealth, that in nowise belonged to them. But the tacit 
condition on which these usurpations were condoned was 
that the nobility should discharge their functions as pro- 
tectors of social institutions, as preservers of peace and 
order. 

In the sixteenth century the power of the nobility was 
broken. The knight ceased to be supreme in arms, and 
as his political and social privileges depended on his 
military prowess, he must now prepare himself to part 
with these. This fact he could not and would not see. He 
was no student of social science, he had no philosophy of 
history, but he had the usual share of human selfishness, 
and the disposition to hold on at all hazards to his pos- 
sessions. The increase of royal power on the one hand, 
and on the other his own growing poverty, began to 
pinch him sorely. The rise of the merchant class, the 
increase of manufactures and commerce, had done away 
with the old system of barter, and introduced the use of 
money. Of money the knight had little, of wants he 
and his household had an increasing number. It was nat- 
ural that he should turn to his only resource, the peasants 
who tilled his soil, and try to wring from them the sums 
that he needed. Thus began new and continually in- 
creasing exactions from the peasants, until their condition 
became intolerable. Discontent became everywhere rife, 
and frequent insurrections showed that a violent social 
revolution was imminent. 



THE OUTBREAK OF FANATICISM 169 

The rise of the Lutheran Reformation was coincident 
with this state of things. It was inevitable that the peas- 
ants should be encouraged to expect betterment of their 
condition from the religious movement thus begun, and 
the early teachings of Luther must have fanned this hope. 
The seething discontent finally broke out into a general 
uprising throughout Southern Germany. The peasants 
drew up twelve articles, in which they demanded what 
seem now like very moderate measures of reform, such 
as the right to elect their own pastors, the status of free- 
men, restoration of the common rights to fish and game 
and woodlands, just administration of the laws, and abo- 
lition of fines and undue feudal services. In a tract that 
he wrote on the articles, though he criticised the peasants 
for resorting to forcible methods of obtaining redress, 
Luther felt compelled to defend the substantial justice of 
these demands, and exhorted the nobles to yield lest ruin 
overtake them. 

It is quite clear that we have no one upon earth to thank for 
all this disorder and insurrection but you yourselves, princes 
and lords, and you especially, blind bishops, insane priests and 
monks, who, even to this very day, hardened in your perversity, 
cease not to clamor against the holy gospel, although you know 
it is just and right and good, and that you cannot honestly say 
anything against it. At the same time, in your capacity as 
secular authorities, you manifest yourselves the executioners and 
spoilers of the poor, you sacrifice everything and everybody to 
your monstrous luxury, to your outrageous pride, and you have 
continued to do this until the people neither can nor will endure 
you any longer. With the sword already at your throat, your 
mad presumption induces you to imagine yourselves so firm in 
the saddle that you cannot be thrown off. If you alter not, and 
that speedily, this impious security will break your necks for 
you. . . It is you, it is your crimes that God is about to 
punish. If the peasants, who are now attacking you, are not the 
ministers of his will, others, coming after them, will be so. You 
may beat them, but you will be none the less vanquished; you 
may crush them to the earth, but God will raise up others in 



170 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

their place; it is his pleasure to strike you, and he will strike 
you. 1 

The leader of the peasants whose name has come down 
to us as most notable was Thomas Munzer. He was 
born about 1490 at Stolberg, studied at several universi- 
ties, becoming a bachelor of theology at Halle, and was 
a man of considerable learning, unusual ability, and re- 
markable eloquence. With all these gifts he showed him- 
self from the beginning of his career to be one of those 
hot-headed, unbalanced, fanatical men, who are born to 
be troublers in Israel. In 15 15 he was provost of a con- 
vent at Trohsen, near Aschersleben, and in 15 17 became 
a teacher in the gymnasium at Brunswick. In June, 
1520, he became preacher of the chief church at Zwickau, 
the city already leaning toward Lutheranism; and it is 
more than suspected that he received the appointment 
with Luther's knowledge and sanction. In his first ser- 
mon he attacked the pope and clergy so furiously as to 
make a marked sensation in the town, and soon great 
crowds of people flocked in from the surrounding region 
to hear this preacher, who, according to an enemy's 
testimony, was " gifted with angelic eloquence." 

It was by Luther's earlier writings that he had been 
won to the reformation cause, and he took more seriously 
than their author the ideas set forth in these writings. 
Luther's course was a curious compound of radical opin- 
ions and conservative action, but Munzer was the kind 
of man to insist on making action correspond to avowed 
opinion. He therefore attempted to carry out consist- 
ently the principle avowed by Luther in his " Babylonian 
Captivity," that the gospel should be the rule of political 
as well as of Christian life. He also dissented from 
Luther's forensic ideas about justification. That faith 

» Michelet, "Life of Luther" (tr. by Hazlitt), pp. 167, 168. 




Page 



A Group of Radical Leaders 



THE OUTBREAK OF FANATICISM 171 

alone justifies he denied, calling this a " fictitious faith." 
In short, the disciple showed a strong tendency to outrun 
his master, in unsparing application of logic and Scripture 
(as he understood the latter) to everyday life. 

Finding the Council and more sober citizens opposed 
to his radicalism, Miinzer thought to strengthen his po- 
sition by attaching his fortunes to those of the " proph- 
ets," Storch, Stiibner, and Thoma, and together they be- 
gan to announce the speedy end of the age and the setting 
up of the kingdom of Christ. These prophecies soon 
produced such disorders in Zwickau that the Council was 
compelled to act. The " prophets " were thrown into 
prison, and Miinzer was banished, going into Bohemia. 

The " prophets " were released after a time, went to 
Wittenberg, as already related, and then disappear from 
history. Miinzer, unfortunately, did not disappear. 
About 1523 he in some way became pastor at Alstedt, 
where he married a former nun. Here he was as con- 
servative as previously he had been radical. He pub- 
lished a liturgy in German which is decidedly more Ro- 
man than Lutheran in doctrine, and contains a form of 
baptism for infants. In one of his tracts published he 
says that infant baptism cannot be proved from Scripture, 
which is probably the reason why he has been called an 
Anabaptist, but he never abandoned the practice of 
baptizing infants. 

By the summer of 1524 he had made the town too hot 
to hold him, and for some time he wandered from place 
to place, visiting (Ecolampadius at Basel, possibly Hub- 
maier at Waldshut, and making the acquaintance of the 
Swiss Anabaptists. At the beginning of 1525 he came 
to Miihlhausen. Before this time, in September, 1524, 
learning what his views had come to be, and what was 
likely to be their outcome, Grebel, Mantz, and Blaurock 
addressed a letter of warning and remonstrance to 



172 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Miinzer which did not reach him, but still exists in the 
archives at SchafThausen to testify to the sound views of 
its authors. " Is it true," Grebel asks, " as we hear, that 
you preached in favor of an attack on the princes ? If you 
defend war or anything else not found in the clear word 
of God, I admonish you by our common salvation to 
abstain from these things now and hereafter." It is im- 
possible to say what effect this fraternal reproof might 
have had ; but not receiving it, Miinzer went on his way, 
and by his rash attempt to mingle civil and religious 
reform, and enforce both by the sword, he forfeited his 
life. 

For when he reached Miihlhausen it was the storm- 
center of Germany; the outbreak of the peasants had 
already begun and the Peasants' War was on. The peas- 
ants had a righteous cause, if ever men had one who 
strove for liberty with the sword, and the justice and 
moderation of their demands as made in their twelve ar- 
ticles is conceded by every modern historian. Miinzer 
gave himself out as the prophet of God, come for the 
purpose of setting up the kingdom of heaven in the city, 
and promising destruction of princes, community of 
goods, and the gospel to be made the rule of life in all 
things. 

By such means he easily made himself the head of the 
revolt, and thousands of the deluded peasants of South- 
ern Germany flocked to his standard. The bubble was 
pricked by the lances of the allied German princes at the 
battle of Frankenhausen, May 15, 1525. The peasants 
were defeated with great slaughter; Miinzer and other 
leaders were captured and put to death ; and it is credibly 
recorded of the " prophet " that before his death he re- 
canted his errors, returned to the Catholic Church, re- 
ceived the last sacraments, and died exhorting the people 
of Miihlhausen to hold fast to the true (Catholic.) faith! 



THE OUTBREAK OF FANATICISM I73 

Though the peasants had a good cause, they had not 
always adopted good methods. Most of them were ig- 
norant, all were exasperated, and some were maddened 
by their wrongs. In their uprising some outrages were 
committed; castles had been burned and plundered and 
ruthless oppressors had been slain. These deeds were 
now made the pretext for a retaliation whose cruelty has 
rarely been surpassed in history. It is computed by his- 
torians who have no motive to exaggerate, that fully a 
hundred thousand were killed before the fury of the 
princes and the knights was appeased. 

Foremost among those who urged them on was Luther. 
It would seem that he had become alarmed by the per- 
sistence of those who had sought to make him and his 
teachings responsible for the peasant war. His hope 
was in the protection and patronage of the princes, to 
whom the plain words he had spoken must have given 
deep offense. So in the midst of the uproar he sent to 
the press a second pamphlet, in which he turned com- 
pletely about, and denounced the peasants as violently as 
he had before rebuked the princes. 

They cause uproar, outrageously rob and pillage monasteries 
and castles not belonging to them. For this alone, as public 
highwaymen and murderers, they deserve a twofold death of 
body and soul. It is right and lawful to slay at the first oppor- 
tunity a rebellious person, known as such, already under God 
and the emperor's ban. For of a public rebel, every man is 
both judge and executioner. Just as, when a fire starts, he who 
can extinguish it first is the best fellow. Rebellion is not a vile 
murder, but like a great fire that kindles and devastates a 
country; hence uproar carries with it a land full of murder, 
bloodshed, makes widows and orphans, and destroys everything, 
like the greatest calamity. Therefore whosoever can, should 
smite, strangle, and stab, secretly or publicly, and should remem- 
ber that there is nothing more poisonous, pernicious, and devilish 
than a rebellious man. Just as when one must slay a mad dog; 
fight him not and he will fight you, and a whole country with you. 



174 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Let the civil power press on confidently and strike as long 
as it can move a muscle. For here is the advantage : the peas- 
ants have bad consciences and unlawful goods, and whenever a 
peasant is killed therefore he has lost body and soul, and goes 
forever to the devil. Civil authority, however, has a clean con- 
science and lawful goods, and can say to God with all security 
of heart : " Behold, my God, thou hast appointed me prince or 
lord, of that I cannot doubt, and hast entrusted me with the 
sword against evil-doers (Rom. 13 : 4). . . Therefore I will 
punish and smite as long as I can move a muscle; thou wilt 
judge and approve." . . Such wonderful times are these that 
a prince can more easily win heaven by shedding blood than 
others with prayers. 

Therefore, dear lords, redeem here, save here, help here; 
have mercy on these poor peasants, stab, strike, strangle, whoever 
can. Remainest thou therefore dead? Well for you, for a more 
pious death nevermore canst thou obtain. For thou diest in 
obedience to God's word and to duty (Rom. 13: 1), and in the 
service of love, to deliver thy neighbor out of hell and the devil's 
chains. 



The charge brought against Luther was of course ab- 
surd. There would have been a revolt of the peasants 
had there been no Luther and no Reformation, though it 
is possible that Luther and his teachings hastened the 
outbreak and increased its violence. It is equally absurd 
to charge the responsibility of the revolt upon the Ana- 
baptists, and had not Miinzer been erroneously called an 
Anabaptist by careless writers probably no connection 
would have been suspected between movements that had 
so little in common as the religious reformation sought 
by the Anabaptists and the social revolution desired by 
the peasants. Some few Anabaptists were doubtless con- 
cerned in the revolt — it would be wonderful if such were 
not the case — but not the sect as a whole, or even any 
large proportion of them. One fact is decisive of this 
question: the vengeance of the princes and nobles was 
not directed against Anabaptists as such, on account of 



THE OUTBREAK OF FANATICISM 1 75 

the peasant uprising. No contemporary charges the 
Anabaptists with responsibility for the disorders at Muhl- 
hausen or elsewhere during the revolt of the peasants. 
That charge it was left for certain writers of the present 
century to advance for the first time. 

It was in Northern Germany, and some years after the 
revolt of the peasants had been subdued, that the anar- 
chistic and doctrinal vagaries of certain Anabaptists 
found their fullest development. He who has been called 
the leading spirit of the movement that culminated at 
Miinster, never countenanced or taught the use of the 
sword in the cause of religion. Melchior Hofmann was 
a man of fervent piety, of evangelical spirit, of pure and 
devoted life; but his mind was of the dreamy, mystical 
type, and his lack of thorough knowledge of the Scrip- 
tures in the original tongues, and his deficiency in general 
mental culture made him an easy victim to speculations 
and vagaries. Pure in life and mild in character as he 
was, not a few of his teachings contained dangerous 
germs of evil, and their development under his successors 
brought great shame upon the Anabaptist cause. 

Hofmann was born in Swabia, probably in the free im- 
perial city of Hall, about 1490. He had only a slight 
education, and was apprenticed to a furrier. He very 
early embraced the Lutheran Reformation, but was by 
nature a radical and an enthusiast, and could be expected 
to remain permanently subject to no leader who halted 
half-way in the work of reform. A disparaging refer- 
ence to him in one of Zwingli's letters, written in 1523, 
shows that he was then in Zurich, and later he went to 
Livonia, where he was in no long time thrown into 
prison and then banished. He was in Dorpat in the 
autumn of 1524, and succeeded in obtaining testimonials 
from a number of scholars and influential men, including 
Luther himself. It was about this time that he began to 



I76 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

develop his chiliastic notions, and as a lay preacher he 
did not fail to advocate them. This would bring him into 
no collision with the Lutherans, for Luther was himself 
inclined to chiliastic notions, at least during this portion 
of his career. About the beginning of 1526 Hofmann 
went to Stockholm, where he published his first book, an 
interpretation of the twelfth chapter of Daniel, in which 
he gave free vent to his notions about the coming of 
Christ's kingdom, and fixed the year 1533 for the end 
of the age. 

For the next two years he was in Denmark ; being still 
attached to the Lutheran party, he had little difficulty in 
obtaining the protection of the authorities, and even got 
a living assigned him. His restlessness in speculation 
soon made trouble for him with the Lutheran clergy, and 
finally his avowal of Zwinglian ideas regarding the Eu- 
charist procured his banishment. Thence he seems to 
have gone to Strassburg, arriving there at the beginning 
of 1529, or possibly a little before. 

Up to this time there is no evidence that he had met 
any Anabaptists or become acquainted with their views, 
still less that he had any inclination toward them. At 
Strassburg the Anabaptists were numerous, and the death 
of Denck had left them without a recognized leader. 
They differed from many German Anabaptists on several 
points ; in particular, they were opposed to the use of the 
sword, in spite of the authority of Hubmaier and Denck. 
The ardor of Hofmann and the novelty of his teachings 
naturally fitted him to step into the vacant leadership, 
and in a very short time he was recognized as the head 
of the Anabaptists of Strassburg. He wrote and taught 
indefatigably, and made numerous missionary journeys 
into surrounding regions. One of these, into Holland, 
was fraught with momentous consequences, for in the 
course of it he met, converted, baptized, and indoctrinated 



THE OUTBREAK OF FANATICISM 1 77 

with his notions, Jan Matthys, a baker of Haarlem, who 
was to be his successor, and lead the Anabaptists into a 
career of shame and overthrow. 

After a time the magistrates of the city became 
alarmed at Hofmann's growing influence, and he was ar- 
rested in May, 1533, and thrown into prison. He had 
before this predicted that the end of the age was at hand ; 
that Strassburg was to be the New Jerusalem, and that 
the magistrates would there set up the kingdom of God ; 
that the new truth and the new baptism would prevail 
irresistibly throughout the earth. He had set the very 
year of his arrest as the time of consummation; and at 
first his followers were not dismayed, for this persecu- 
tion, they persuaded themselves, was also foretold. But 
the years passed and Hofmann still languished in prison, 
until death released him toward the close of 1543. 

In the meantime another " prophet " had arisen and 
his predictions were claiming the attention of the credu- 
lous. Hofmann was discredited by the failure of his 
prophecies, but none the less eagerly were those of Jan 
Matthys received. He was one of these crack-brained 
fanatics, half lunatic, half criminal, who never fail 
to gain a large following, and as certainly lead their 
dupes to destruction. About the time of Hofmann's im- 
prisonment Matthys began to dream dreams and see vi- 
sions ; proclaimed himself to be the Elias of the new dis- 
pensation soon to begin, and sent out twelve apostles to 
herald the coming of the kingdom of Christ. Among 
other things he predicted the speedy overthrow of all ty- 
rants and the coming of an age of gold. Converts were 
made to this new gospel by the thousand in Holland and 
Friesland. 

Events just then occurring at the city of Miinster at- 
tracted the attention of the Anabaptist leaders and caused 
that city to become the center of operations. Miinster 

M 



I78 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

was at that time a semi-free city, ruled by its council, but 
situated in the territory of a prince-bishop who claimed 
a certain suzerainty. The citizens had been struggling 
to gain freedom from an ecclesiastical caste that insulted 
and robbed them, and a famine that occurred in this 
region in 1529 brought the city to the very verge of 
revolution. 

At this juncture Bernard Rothmann began to preach 
the Lutheran doctrines there, and soon all the clergy of 
the city sided with him. A revolution, half political, half 
religious, ensued, and by the intervention of Philip of 
Hesse a treaty was made with the prince-bishop, in which 
Miinster was recognized as a Lutheran city. But Roth- 
mann and his colleagues had no notion of stopping here ; 
they issued a " Confession of Two Sacraments," in which 
they strongly advocated believers' baptism, and defined 
the ordinance as " dipping or completely plunging into 
the water." 

Just as affairs had come to this stage two of the 
apostles of Matthys reached the city and began preaching 
and baptizing. In eight days they are said to have bap- 
tized fourteen hundred people. Two weeks later Jan 
Matthys himself arrived, and in February the Anabaptists 
had so increased that they had no difficulty in electing a 
council from their own number, and so gained control 
of the government of Miinster without striking a blow. 
From this time they had supreme power in the town, 
though the prince-bishop speedily laid siege to it and 
confined them closely within. 

The Anabaptist domination was celebrated by clearing 
the Dom of all images, and driving from the city all who 
would not join them. The council then established com- 
munity of goods as the law of the town, and the orgy of 
fanaticism and wickedness began. Daily visions and rev- 
elations came to the leaders, some of whom were evi- 



THE OUTBREAK OF FANATICISM 179 

dently sincere, while others appear to have been simply 
devilish. Matthys was certainly one of the former, and 
proved it by his death. In obedience to a vision he made 
a sortie from the city with a few followers, and was 
killed while fighting desperately. John Bockhold, of 
Leyden, thereupon declared himself the successor, and 
had no difficulty in persuading the people to accept him 
as the prophet appointed by God. Nothing seemed too 
much for these credulous Miinsterites to receive unques- 
tioningly. When John of Leyden shortly afterward pro- 
claimed that this was Mount Zion, that the kingdom of 
David was to be re-established, and that he was King 
David, nobody questioned him. The solemn farce was 
played out to the end. Of course King David had to 
have a harem, and polygamy was proclaimed as the law 
of the new kingdom. Perhaps the fact that six times as 
many women as men were now in the city had not a very 
remote connection with this feature of the kingdom. 

The farce was about ended; it was soon to become 
bloody tragedy. The Miinsterites, knowing that before 
the siege began the surrounding country held thousands 
who sympathized with them, were continually expecting 
that an armed force of Anabaptists would come to their 
aid. But the Anabaptists were overawed by the military 
force, or disgusted by the fantastic doings in the city, and 
no army came. The town was wasted by famine, weak- 
ened at last by dissensions, and betrayed by traitors. 
June 25, 1535, it fell, and Anabaptism in Germany fell 
with it. There was great slaughter in the town, and the 
captured leaders, after tortures truly diabolical in their 
cruelty, were hung up in cages to the tower of the church 
of St. Lambert, in the chief market-place, to die of starva- 
tion and exposure, and there they hung until quite recent 
times, when for very shame the few remaining bones 
were removed. The cages still hang there. 



l80 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The entire responsibility for these disorders was at once 
thrown upon the Anabaptists. There was this excuse for 
so doing, that several of the ringleaders, and a consider- 
able number of their followers, called themselves or were 
called by that name. Yet the principles of Rothmann, in 
his writings that remain, are totally opposed to his con- 
duct at Miinster. In none of the Anabaptist literature 
of the time is there anything but horror and detestation 
expressed for the Miinster doings ; and even before they 
were made the scapegoats of this uprising, their writings 
were full of reproofs spoken against any who would prop- 
agate religion by the sword. Miinster was not more de- 
cidedly contrary to the teachings of the reformers than 
it was to the teachings of the Anabaptists generally. It 
is no more fair to hold the Anabaptists as a whole respon- 
sible for what occurred there, because Matthys and Bock- 
hold were Anabaptists, than it is to hold the Lutherans 
responsible because Rothmann was a Lutheran when he 
began his evil career. Cornelius, the able and judicial 
Roman Catholic historian of the Miinster uproar, says 
justly: " All these excesses were condemned and opposed 
wherever a large assembly of the brethren afforded an 
opportunity to give expression to the religious con- 
sciousness of the Anabaptist membership." Fiisslin, a 
conscientious and impartial German investigator, says : 
" There was a great difference between Anabaptists and 
Anabaptists. There were those amongst them who held 
strange doctrines, but this cannot be said of the whole 
sect. If we should attribute to every sect whatever sense- 
less doctrines two or three fanciful fellows have taught, 
there is no one in the world to whom we could not ascribe 
the most abominable errors." To which may be added 
the conclusion of Ulhorn : " The general character of this 
whole movement was peaceful, in spite of the prevailing 
excitement. Nobody thought of carrying out the new 




Page i So 



Munster — The Church of St. Lambert 



THE OUTBREAK OF FANATICISM l8l 

ideas by force. In striking contrast to the Miinzer up- 
roar, meekness and suffering were here understood as the 
most essential elements of the Christian ideal." 

But though scholarly investigations, with substantial 
unanimity, have now come to this conclusion regarding 
the teachings and methods of German Anabaptists, this 
was not the voice of contemporary opinion; that visited 
the sins of the few upon the many, and pronounced all 
Anabaptists alike to be enemies of society and worthy 
of any punishment that could be devised. The most atro- 
cious crimes were not avenged with a severity greater 
than was visited on the members of this unfortunate sect. 
The severities of former persecutions were far exceeded, 
and only in the domain of the Landgrave of Hesse was 
there anything like moderation or justice in the treatment 
meted out to these people. This prince alone among the 
Protestant rulers, while he favored the punishment of 
those actually concerned in the Minister disorders, de- 
clared that merely to be an Anabaptist was not a capital 
crime : " To punish with death those who have done 
nothing more than err in the faith, cannot be justified on 
gospel grounds." 

A gathering of Protestant authorities was held August 
7, 1536, at Homburg, in Hesse, to consider the policy 
proper to be pursued toward the Anabaptists. Eight rep- 
resentatives of the nobility, seven delegates from five 
cities, and ten divines were present. The divines sub- 
stantially agreed with Melanchthon, whose judgment was : 
" That the Anabaptists may and should be restrained 
by the sword. That those who have been sent into ex- 
ile, and do not abide by the conditions, are to be punished 
by the sword." The representatives of the cities, particu- 
larly of Ulm and Augsburg, were of the milder opinion 
that death should not be inflicted as a punishment of 
heresy, though other severities might be employed. Such 



1 82 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of the nobles as spoke favored banishment, on pain of 
death in case of return. This was the penalty finally 
decided upon. 

After the savage persecution following the downfall of 
Miinster, one might have expected the Anabaptists to 
have been extirpated. Their prominent leaders, it is 
true, disappeared, some being put to death, some dying 
of hardships and excessive toils. They were not entirely 
without leadership, however, and their dauntless fidelity 
to the truth continued. In Moravia, about the middle of 
the sixteenth century, there were seventy communities 
of Anabaptists, prosperous farmers and tradesmen, ac- 
knowledged to be among the most thrifty and law-abid- 
ing element of the population. In Strassburg, in Augs- 
burg, in Bohemia, and in Moldavia, they were also found 
in large numbers, and wherever found they were marked 
men by reason of their godly lives and good citizenship. 
Fifty years later, however, persecution had done its work 
only too well, and early in the seventeenth century we 
find the Anabaptists disappear from the history of Ger- 
many. They survived somewhat later in Poland, where 
they became quite numerous, and a large section of them 
adopted the Socinian theology. 

The German Anabaptists committed the one sin that 
this world never pardons : they attempted a radical revo- 
lution, which would ultimately have transformed civil and 
social as well as religious institutions and — they failed. 
That is the real gist of their offense. Had they suc- 
ceeded, the very men whom historians have loaded with 
execrations would have been held up as the greatest and 
noblest men of their age. The fame of Luther and 
Zwingli and Calvin would have been eclipsed by that of 
Grebel and Hubmaier and Denck, if the labors of the 
Anabaptists had been crowned with success. The true 
Reformation was that with which they were identified. 



THE OUTBREAK OF FANATICISM 1 83 

The Reformation that actually prevailed in the sixteenth 
century was a perversion of the genuine movement, re- 
sulting from the unholy alliance with the State made by 
those who are called " reformers." Two centuries were 
required before the fruits of a real Reformation could 
ripen for the gathering; and it was in America, not in 
Germany, that the genuine Reformation culminated. 



CHAPTER XIII 

MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS 

IF the disappearance of the Anabaptists from Germany 
had been as complete in reality as it was in appear- 
ance, it would furnish a curious historical problem to ex- 
plain so sudden a cessation of evangelical teaching and 
practice. But the student of history is not long in dis- 
covering that the Anabaptists did not disappear; they 
only took a different name. They had never chosen the 
name Anabaptist, and had always maintained that it was 
not properly applied to them. Now that the name had 
come to be a synonym for all that was fanatical in creed 
and immoral in conduct, they were only too glad to be 
rid of the hateful title — as hateful to them as to their 
oppressors. As before, so now and after, these people 
called themselves simply " the brethren," but in common 
speech a new name came to be applied to them about the 
middle of the sixteenth century; they were known as 
Mennonites. 

Of Menno, surnamed Simons, we know little, save 
what he himself has told us. He was born in Witmar- 
son, Friesland, in 1496 or 1497. He was educated for 
the priesthood, and in 1524 he undertook the duties of 
a priest in his father's village, called Pingjum. A year 
thereafter, while officiating at the altar, the thought oc- 
curred to him that the bread and wine in the mass were 
not the body and blood of Christ, but he put the idea 
from him as a temptation of the devil. He feared to 
study the Scriptures lest they mislead him. His life was 
godless and dissipated. After a time he began to study 
184 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS 185 

the Scriptures, and received some light from them, though 
his heart was still unchanged. 

While in this state of mind Menno heard of the martyr- 
dom of one Sicke Freerks or Frierichs, more commonly 
known by his surname of Snyder, which designated him 
as a tailor. On the 30th of March, 1531, this faithful be- 
liever was condemned, as the court record reads, " to be 
executed by the sword; his body shall be laid on the 
wheel, and his head set on a stake, because he has been 
rebaptized and perseveres in that baptism " ; all of which 
was duly done at Leeuwarden. The blood of that poor 
tailor produced a host of followers to the Lord, for whom 
he joyfully gave all that he had, even his life; for it led 
Menno Simons, after a long and hard struggle, to 
decisive action. 

At first he was merely surprised to hear that this man 
suffered on account of what was called a second baptism. 
He studied the Scriptures, but could find in them nothing 
about infant baptism. He consulted in turn Luther, 
Bucer, and Bullinger, but they gave him no help, for he 
saw that the arguments by which they supported the 
practice had no foundation in the Scriptures. Though 
he now came gradually to a fuller knowledge of God's 
truth, and to some outward amendment of his life, he 
still held back from what he knew to be his duty. He 
was ambitious, and hesitated to break with the church, 
in which he hoped for a career and fame. For a time 
he attempted to compromise with his conscience, and 
preached the truth publicly from the pulpit. Finally, he 
says, after about nine months of such preaching, the Lord 
granted him his Spirit and power, and he then renounced 
all his worldly honor and reputation, separated himself 
from the church and its errors, and willingly submitted 
to distress and poverty. 

This was about the year 1536, and it seems to have 



l86 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

been Menno's intention to lead the quiet life of a student 
and writer. But about a year later, a small group of 
believers came to him and urged him to remember the 
needs of the poor, hungry souls, and make better use of 
the talents he had from the Lord. Accordingly, he began 
to preach the gospel, and continued to make known the 
truth with voice and pen to the end of his life. 

Though not without frequent interruptions, his labors 
were practically continuous and very fruitful. At the 
beginning, the Anabaptists were greatly divided, as well 
as discouraged. One party still held to the views that 
had been practically embodied at Minister ; they defended 
polygamy, believed in the speedy second coming of Christ, 
a second time incarnated to set up an earthly kingdom, 
which his followers were to defend and extend by the 
sword. The other party condemned polygamy and the 
sword. The strife was keen, but the weight of Menno's 
influence turned the scale in favor of purity and peace. 
From the first he repudiated the ideas of Miinster. In 
his " Exit from Papacy " he wrote as follows : " Beloved 
reader, we have been falsely accused by our opponents of 
defending the doctrine of Miinsterites, with respect to 
king, sword, revolution, self-defense, polygamy, and many 
similar abominations; but know, my good reader, that 
never in my life have I assented to those articles of the 
Miinster Confession ; but for more than seventeen years, 
according to my small gift, I have warned and opposed 
them in their abominable errors. I have, by the word of 
the Lord, brought some of them to the right way. Miin- 
ster I have never seen in all my life. I have never been 
in their communion. I hope, by God's grace, with such 
never to eat or drink (as the Scriptures teach), except 
they confess from the heart their abominations and bring 
forth fruits meet for repentance and truly follow the 
gospel." 




Page 



Menno Simons 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS 187 

Menno was an apostle of the truth, preaching and 
founding churches across the whole of Northern Europe, 
from France to Russia. In spite of the severest edicts 
and the bloodiest persecutions, he continued faithful to 
his calling, and found willing hearers of the gospel 
wherever he went. He enforced a strict standard of 
morals, repressed all tendencies toward fanaticism, and 
gradually molded his followers into the mild, peaceful, 
and moral people that the Mennonites have ever since 
been. His last years were spent in Holstein, where he 
died January 13, 1561, in his sixty-sixth year. He was a 
voluminous writer, and during his last decade he estab- 
lished a printing-press and secured the wide circulation 
of his writings. These are mostly in the Dutch language, 
though some were originally written in " Oostersch " and 
very badly translated into Dutch. The issue of his " Fun- 
damental Book of the True Christian Faith," in 1539, es- 
tablished his doctrinal teaching on solid grounds. It dif- 
fered from the Reformed theology only in maintaining 
the spiritual idea of the church, as a communion of true 
saints, and the necessary consequence of this idea, the 
rejection of infant baptism. 

Menno owed his prolonged life and labors in part to 
the fact that he was content to work very quietly and 
obscurely, in part to the protection that he received at 
various times from several princes and noblemen, who 
were favorable to evangelical teachings. He had many 
narrow escapes, some of which seem like special interpo- 
sitions of Providence on his behalf. His daughter relates 
that a traitor who had agreed without fail, for a certain 
sum of money, to deliver him into the hands of his ene- 
mies, after several failures one day met Menno, being 
then in the company of an officer in search of the heretic 
preacher. Menno was going along the canal in a small 
boat. The traitor kept silence until Menno had passed 



1 88 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

them some distance, and had leaped ashore in order to 
escape with less peril. Then the traitor cried out, " Be- 
hold, the bird has escaped ! " The officer chastised him, 
called him a villain, and demanded why he did not speak 
in time, to which the traitor replied, " I could not speak, 
for my tongue was bound." It is said the authorities 
were so displeased with the man that, according to his 
pledge, he had to forfeit his own head. 

Certainly this servant of God was pursued with great 
bitterness. The governor of Friesland issued a proclama- 
tion, under date of December 7, 1542, in which it was de- 
clared that any one who gave food or lodging, or any 
assistance to Menno Simons, or should have any of his 
books, should be liable to the penalties of heresy. This 
was no empty threat; before this, in 1539, one Tjaert 
Reyndertz or Reynderson, was arraigned for the offense 
of lodging Menno in his house, was stretched on the 
wheel and finally beheaded. These local persecutions and 
edicts were doubtless inspired by the general edict of 
Charles V., executed at Brussels, June 10, 1535, which 
commanded that all Anabaptists or re-baptizers and their 
abettors should be put to death by fire; those who sin- 
cerely repented and renounced their errors should be be- 
headed, and the women should be buried alive. Buckle, 
in his " History of Civilization," estimates that by 1546, 
thirty thousand persons had been put to death for Ana- 
baptism in Holland and Friesland alone. And yet it is 
held by many historians that this decree was never gen- 
erally enforced. Had it been, one must think the country 
would have been nearly depopulated. 

In spite of such measures, the churches established by 
Menno and his fellow-laborers increased in numbers rap- 
idly. Their growth may be explained by two causes, of 
which one has already been mentioned. The change of 
name was greatly in their favor. To say " Anabaptist " 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS 189 

produced much the same effect in those days that the cry 
of " mad dog " does in ours. To say " Mennonite," at 
most provoked a feeling of mild curiosity as to what this 
new sect might be — so much is there in a name, Shakes- 
peare to the contrary notwithstanding. A second thing 
greatly in favor of this new development of the Anabap- 
tists, was the fact that the Netherlands soon came to favor 
a much greater measure of religious liberty than was 
found anywhere else in Europe. In 1572 the Netherlands 
revolted from the authority of the Spanish crown, and in 
1579 formed a federal union, with the Prince of Orange 
at its head. He was the most liberal-minded prince in 
Europe, and was strongly opposed to all persecution on 
religious grounds. To his influence chiefly the Menno- 
nites owed their long immunity from active persecution, 
for the clergy of the Reformed Church (which became 
the established religion of the Netherlands) were gen- 
erally opposed to toleration, and many times attempted 
to stir up the government against the Mennonites. After 
1 58 1 the mild, peaceable, and law-abiding character of 
this people gained for them a measure of toleration that 
other Anabaptist bodies failed to enjoy; and with the in- 
dependence of the Netherlands came religious freedom, 
the Mennonites being formally recognized in 1672. This 
is probably the reason why they alone, of the Anabaptist 
parties of the Reformation, have survived to the present 
day. 

One branch of Menno's followers, those especially in 
Lithuania, at the invitation of Empress Catherine II., 
emigrated to Russia, and there founded flourishing agri- 
cultural communities, especially in the Crimea. They 
were for a long time treated with exceptional favor, 
their faith not only being tolerated, but the male mem- 
bers being exempted from military service on account of 
their religious scruples against bearing arms. Their 



190 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

descendants abode there until, in 1871, an imperial decree 
deprived them of this exemption, since when many of 
them have emigrated to America, forming strong colonies 
in several of our Western States. Many others have 
come from Holland and elsewhere, and the majority of 
Mennonites are now found on American soil. In the 
census of 1890 twelve branches are reported, with slight 
differences in polity and doctrine, aggregating a mem- 
bership of forty-one thousand five hundred and forty-one. 

There is good reason to believe that from the first, 
affusion was generally practised for baptism by the Men- 
nonites. Menno himself at times uses language that 
would seem to imply immersion, as when he says, " We 
find but one baptism in the water, pleasing to God, which 
is expressed and contained in his word, namely, baptism 
on the confession of faith. . . But of this other bap- 
tism, that is, infant baptism, we find nothing." Yet that 
he could have had an immersion in mind as the act of 
baptism is irreconcilable with his speaking of it elsewhere 
as " to have a handful of water applied." While he was 
perfectly clear about the scriptural teaching regarding 
the subject of baptism, he appears to have considered the 
act as a relatively unimportant matter. He was content 
to follow the prevailing practice of his time, and so were 
his followers. 

But while the Mennonites as a whole have doubtless 
from the first practised affusion, there have been and are 
some exceptions. The congregation at Rynsburg, known 
as Collegiants, adopted immersion in 1619, a fact that had 
important relations to the Baptists of England, as we 
shall see. One branch in the United States, that coming 
from Russia, practises immersion exclusively, and another 
branch immerses by preference, but affuses those who 
prefer that form. 

Neither their love of Christ nor their fear of persecu- 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS I9I 

tion was able to keep the Anabaptists of the sixteenth 
century from internal dissensions ; and this was especially 
true of the followers of Menno. Since they had no 
formal creeds and professed the Scriptures alone as their 
standard of faith and practice, it was natural that con- 
siderable differences should arise among them. They be- 
came divided into High and Low (Obere and Untere). 
The former held to vigorous discipline, or the " ban." 
The Low party would reserve the " ban " for cases of 
flagrant immorality. This division dates from the time 
of Menno himself, who was inclined towards a more strict 
use of the ban than many of his followers approved. A 
synod or assembly of the brethren held at Strassburg in 
1555, felt constrained to protest against what they be- 
lieved to be Menno's excessive strictness, especially in 
requiring a husband or wife to refuse cohabitation with 
an excluded partner. 

Some of the disputes that arose among the brethren 
deserve a place in the curiosities of literature. Such is 
the button controversy, which arose in this wise: The 
traditional method of fastening the gowns of women and 
the coats of men had been hooks and eyes. The Menno- 
nites held views about soberness of dress and shunning 
conformity to the fashions of the world similar to those 
afterward associated with the Friends or Quakers. Ac- 
cordingly, when buttons were invented and introduced, 
the use of them on a garment was held to be the badge 
of a carnal mind, it was a conformity to the spirit of this 
world unworthy of a true Christian. This was the 
ground on which this apparently trivial controversy was 
fiercely fought for generations; and to this day some of 
the descendants of the High party, even in this country, 
fasten their coats with the old-fashioned hooks and eyes 
and are popularly known as " Hook-and-eye Dutch." 
In general, it may be said that the High party demanded 



ig2 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

a discipline extending far beyond Scripture precedent, 
and concerning itself with the minutest details of daily 
living. The Low party was in favor of a more rational 
measure of Christian liberty. In some cases the High 
party also insisted as an article of faith on letting the 
beard grow, while the Low party denied that the use of 
the razor was contrary to the word of God. 

The Mennonite churches were not content, however, 
with establishing general rules ; they undertook to regu- 
late the daily lives of their members, and to interfere with 
all manner of private concerns. The results produced by 
this policy are well illustrated by the Bintgens case. 
Bintgens was an elder in the Franecker church, and hav- 
ing occasion to purchase a house for seven hundred 
florins, permitted the seller to insert in the deed a valu- 
ation of eight hundred florins. It was not charged that 
Bintgens profited by the transaction or that anybody lost ; 
but he had been a party to a deception, and that was 
enough. When the matter was brought before the 
church, Bintgens professed sorrow for his error, and his 
statement was accepted. Later a party in the church 
demanded his deposition from the eldership. Three suc- 
cessive councils failed to effect a settlement, and neigh- 
boring churches became involved in the matter. For 
years the contest raged, some churches becoming hope- 
lessly divided, others withdrawing fellowship from sister 
churches whose attitude they did not approve, and great 
scandal being brought upon the name of the brethren by 
this bitter contentiousness over so slight a matter. " Be- 
hold how great a forest is kindled by how small a fire." 

Followers of Menno appeared in England in the six- 
teenth century, as we learn from many historical docu- 
ments. They fled thither to escape the persecutions that 
then raged in Holland, but in this they were doomed to 
disappointment, for England harried the Anabaptists no 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS I93 

less than Holland, casting them into prison and burning 
them at the stake. Our information regarding these 
people is mainly confined to royal proclamations against 
them, and to the records of their arrest, trial, and 
punishment. 

In 1534, after the Act of Supremacy made Henry VIII. 
the supreme head of the Church of England, he issued 
two proclamations against heretics, in which the Ana- 
baptists were especially named. They were first warned 
to leave the kingdom within ten days, and then severer 
measures were taken against them. In the ten articles 
published by royal authority in 1536, the error of the 
Anabaptists regarding the baptism of children is singled 
out for special reprobation. It is a matter of record that 
in this same year nineteen Dutch Anabaptists were ar- 
rested, and fourteen were burned. Ten are said to have 
likewise perished in the preceding year. Bishop Latimer, 
who was himself to suffer in like manner for the truth 
a few years later, says of these executions : " The Ana- 
baptists that were burnt here in divers towns in England, 
as I heard of credible men, I saw them not myself, 
went to their death even intrepide, as ye will say, without 
any fear in the world, cheerfully; well, let them go." 

In 1538 another proclamation was issued against here- 
tics, who had in the meantime increased rapidly, and a 
commission of Cranmer and eight bishops was appointed 
to proceed against such by way of inquisition. Any who 
remained obdurate were to be committed, with their her- 
etical books and manuscripts, to the flames. Four Dutch 
Anabaptists were burned in consequence at Paul's Cross 
and two at Smithfield. 

That these Anabaptists were really an inoffensive folk, 
who were punished solely for religious offenses, is proved 
by still another proclamation of Henry VIII., issued in 
1540, in which their alleged heresies were thus enumer- 

N 



194 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ated : " Infants ought not to be baptized ; it is not lawful 
for a Christian man to bear office or rule in the common- 
wealth; every manner of death, with the time and hour 
thereof, is so certainly prescribed, appointed, and deter- 
mined to every man by God, that neither any prince by 
his word can alter it, nor any man by his wilfulness 
prevent or change it." 

In the sermons of Roger Hutchinson, published by 
the Parker Society, is a discourse preached prior to 1560, 
the following from which describes one tenet on which 
the Anabaptists of that day laid special stress : 

Whether may a man sue forfeits against regrators, forestallers, 
and other oppressors? Or ought patience to restrain us from all 
suit and contention? "Aye," saith master Anabaptist; "for 
Christ our Master, whose example we must follow, he would 
not condemn an advoutress woman to be stoned to death, ac- 
cording to the law, but shewed pity to her, and said, ' Go and 
sin no more ' (John 8) ; neither would he, being desired to 
be an arbiter, judge between two brethren and determine their 
suit (Luke 12). When the people would have made him their 
king he conveyed himself out of sight, and would not take on 
himself such office. Christ the Son of God would not have 
refused these functions and offices if with the profession of a 
Christian man it were agreeable with the temporal sword to 
punish offenders, to sustain any public room, and to determine 
controversies and suits ; if it were lawful for private men to 
persecute such suits, and to sue just and rightful titles. He 
non est dominatus sed passus; would be no magistrate, no judge, 
no governor, but suffered and sustained trouble, injury, wrong, 
and oppression patiently. And so must we; for Paul saith, 
' That those which he foreknew he also ordained before — ut 
essent conformcs imagini Filii sui — that they should be alike 
fashioned into the shape of his Son.' " 

By 1550 the growth of the Anabaptists, especially in 
Kent and Essex, so disquieted those in power that a new 
commission was issued in the name of the young king, 
Edward VI., with special powers to discover and punish 




Page 194 



William of Orange 



MENN0 SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS I95 

all Anabaptists. Cranmer, Latimer, and other notable 
reformers were members of this body. It was by their 
agency that Joan Boucher, of Kent, was burned for her- 
esy. Her error was that she held a doctrine common 
among the German Anabaptists, from the time of Mel- 
chior Hofmann, and given further currency by the ad- 
hesion of Menno Simons, that though Jesus was born 
of Mary he did not inherit her flesh ; the idea being that 
if he had, he must have shared her sinful human nature. 
It was crude theology, but the harmless error of un- 
trained minds. A wise church and one really moved by 
the spirit of Christ would have winked at a matter that 
so slightly concerned a godly life; but for this offense, 
and the kindred crime of being an Anabaptist, Joan of 
Kent suffered death at the stake. 

Elizabeth was faithful to the traditions of her race, and 
in 1560 she warned all Anabaptists and other sectaries 
to depart from her realm within twenty-one days, on pain 
of imprisonment and forfeiture of goods. This was a 
peculiar hardship in the years immediately following, for 
persecution was raging in the Netherlands, and England 
was the natural refuge of the oppressed Anabaptists. 
Later in her reign, Elizabeth's relations with the Prot- 
estant States on the Continent led her to relax the rigors 
of persecution, but in the meantime fleeing from Holland 
to England was a leap from fire to fire. The year 1575 
is memorable for a special persecution. Thirty Dutch 
Anabaptists were arrested in London in the very act of 
holding a conventicle. Most of them were finally re- 
leased, after a long detention in prison, but Jan Pieters 
and Hendrik Terwoort were burned for rejecting infant 
baptism and the bearing of arms. A Confession of Faith 
that Terwoort penned while in prison contains the first 
declaration in favor of complete religious liberty made 
on English soil : 



I96 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Observe well the command of God : " Thou shalt love the 
stranger as thyself." Should he then who is in misery, and 
dwelling in a strange land, be driven thence with his companions, 
to their great damage ? Of this Christ speaks, " Whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for 
this is the law and the prophets." Oh, that they would deal with 
us according to natural reasonableness and evangelical truth, of 
which our persecutors so highly boast! For Christ and his 
disciples persecuted no one ; on the contrary, Jesus hath thus 
taught, " Love your enemies, bless them that curse you," etc. This 
doctrine Christ left behind with his apostles, as they testify. 
Thus Paul, " Unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, 
and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling 
place; and labor, working with our own hands; being reviled, 
we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it." From all this it is 
clear, that those who have the one true gospel doctrine and 
faith will persecute no one, but will themselves be persecuted. 

The writings of this period and the published sermons 
of English divines (such as Latimer, Cranmer, Hutchin- 
son, Whitgift, and Coverdale) are full of references to 
the Anabaptists and their heresies. Occasionally some 
light is thrown upon the question of their teachings. 
Thus, in 1589, Doctor Some wrote "A Godly Treatise," 
in which he charged the Anabaptists with holding the 
following deadly errors: 

That the ministers of the gospel ought to be maintained by 
the voluntary contributions of the people; 

That the civil power has no right to make and impose 
ecclesiastical laws; 

That people ought to have the right of choosing their own 
ministers; 

That the high commiccion court was an anti-Christian 
usurpation ; 

That those who are qualified to preach ought not to be 
hindered by the civil power, etc. 

Traces of the presence in England of Anabaptists of 
foreign origin continue during the reign of Elizabeth, but 



MENNO SIMONS AND HIS FOLLOWERS ICj? 

with the decline of persecution on the Continent their 
numbers dwindled, and they at length disappeared. They 
may have converted to their views a few Englishmen here 
and there, but they do not seem to have made any per- 
manent impression on the English people, nor is the his- 
torical connection clear between them and the later bodies 
of Englishmen bearing the same name. 

The last person burned at the stake in England, during 
the reign of James I., Edward Wightman, was an Ana- 
baptist. Almost nothing is known of him previous to 
his arrest, except that he was a resident and probably a 
native of Leicestershire. Whether he was a member of 
an Anabaptist church, and if so, where the church met, 
is not known. He was arrested in March, 1611, and the 
proceedings against him occupied a whole year. In his 
examination fourteen specific questions were propounded, 
with the object of making clear his heresies. In reply to 
these questions he declared that he did not believe in the 
Trinity, that Christ is not of the same substance as the 
Father, but only a man ; he denied that Christ took human 
flesh of the substance of the Virgin Mary ; 1 he affirmed 
that the soul sleeps in the sleep of the first death as well 
as the body; he declared the baptism of infants to be an 
abominable custom; he affirmed that there ought not to 
be in the church the use of the sacraments of the Lord's 
Supper to be celebrated in the elements of bread and wine, 
and of baptism to be celebrated in the element of water, 
as they are now practised in the Church of England ; but 
only the sacrament of baptism, to be administered in 
water to converts of sufficient age of understanding, 
converted from infidelity to the faith. 

From this it is evident that Wightman's views were 
derived from the Continental Anabaptists, and apparently 

1 The Hofmann heresy, for which Joan Boucher also suffered. This 
clearly marks the connection of Wightman with the Continental Anabaptists. 



I98 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

from those who had come from Poland, or in some way 
imbibed the teachings of Socinus. He may also have de- 
rived from that source his idea about immersion, if his 
language implies that, which is not quite certain. For 
" baptism to be celebrated in the element of water " must 
be read in connection with " Lord's Supper to be cele- 
brated in the elements of bread and wine." And it seems 
entirely probable that in the one case " in " has the force 
of " with " as in the other, and has no reference to the 
act — a conclusion made still more probable by the added 
phrase " as they are now practised in the Church of Eng- 
land." The practice of the Church of England then was 
to celebrate baptism in the element of water by pour- 
ing it upon the head of a babe. Wightman objected to 
the babe; he does not make it clear that he objected to 
the pouring. His death occurred April 11, 1612, and so 
profound was the sensation caused that no further 
executions for heresy occurred. 



PART II 
A HISTORY OF BAPTIST CHURCHES 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE EARLY DAYS 

WITH the first decade of the seventeenth century 
we reach solid ground in Baptist history. Be- 
fore that we must proceed by conjecture from one iso- 
lated fact to another, and many of our conclusions are 
open to doubt; but after 1610 we have an unbroken suc- 
cession of Baptist churches, established by indubitable 
documentary evidence. The most that we can say of the 
various Anabaptist groups of the Continent, is that on 
the whole certain of them seem to have held those views 
of Scripture teaching that are fundamental in the Baptist 
faith of to-day. But from about the year 1641, at latest, 
Baptist doctrine and practice have been the same in all 
essential features that they are to-day. Subsequent 
changes have not affected the substance of faith or the 
chief matters of practice in the denomination as a whole. 
The history of English Baptists does not begin on 
English soil, but in Holland. The leader in the new 
movement was the Rev. John Smyth. Much obscurity 
hangs over his early life, and he has by many writers 
been identified with several other men, bearing a name 
then as now very common. He was a pupil and friend 
at Cambridge University of Francis Johnson, later one 
of the Separatist leaders. As Johnson did not matricu- 
late until 1579, it follows that this cannot have been the 
John Smyth who matriculated as sizar in 1571. John 
Smyth took his Master's degree in 1593, whence we 
may conclude that he was born not later than 1570, and 
possibly several years earlier. He is said to have been 

201 



202 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

ordained by Bishop Wickham, of Lincoln, but he was 
never, as has been frequently stated, vicar of Gains- 
borough, as the records of that parish show. He was, 
however, appointed lecturer or preacher in the city of 
Lincoln, September 2J, 1600 ; and though deposed as " a 
facetious man " by vote of the Corporation, October 13, 
1602, appears to have held the office until 1605. 

He tells us himself that he passed through nine months 
of doubt and study before deciding to leave the Church 
of England, but by 1606 he had reached a decision and 
joined himself to a company of Separatists in Gains- 
borough, of whom he became the recognized " teacher " 
— for they disliked " ministers " and all similar terms. 
Thomas Helwys and John Murton were the leading 
members of this group. A few miles distant, in the 
manor of Scrooby, there was another group of Sep- 
aratists, in close fellowship with the Gainsborough group. 
Prominent among the Scrooby group were William Brad- 
ford, William Brewster, and John Robinson, the last 
being the " teacher." Scattered throughout the surround- 
ing region were a score or more of adherents, who were 
rapidly increasing in numbers. 

This was the time when James I. was vigorously mak- 
ing good his threat regarding sectaries in England: 
" I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of 
the land." Persecution became so violent that these Sep- 
aratists despaired of maintaining themselves in England, 
and Thomas Helwys, whose wife had been imprisoned 
for her schism, induced the- Gainsborough group to emi- 
grate to Holland. They established themselves at Am- 
sterdam, where they became the second English church, 
and their teacher supported himself by practising 
medicine. 

The first English church was composed of Separatists, 
mostly from London, who had come to Amsterdam at 



THE EARLY DAYS 203 

various times from 1593 onward, and had as their pastor 
Francis Johnson, who had been a tutor of Smyth at 
Cambridge. Not long after the Gainsborough exodus, 
the church of Scrooby fled to Holland, going first to 
Amsterdam and thence to Leyden. Their pastor was 
John Robinson. It was this congregation, with certain 
additions, that afterward became the Pilgrims of the 
Mayflower. 

Our concern is, however, with the second church at 
Amsterdam. Pastor Smyth here became acquainted, pos- 
sibly for the first time, with the theology of Arminius, and 
here, it is also reasonable to suppose, he learned the Men- 
nonite theory of the nature of the church. If he had had 
doubts before concerning infant baptism they were now 
confirmed into conviction that it is not warranted by the 
Scriptures, and that a scriptural church should consist 
of the regenerate only, who have been baptized on a 
personal confession of faith. He gave utterance to 
these views in a tract called " The Character of the 
Beast" (1609). Before this (1608) differences had 
arisen over a question of comparatively slight importance 
between the two English churches, and the result had 
been an interruption of their communion. Now a still 
more important step was taken : Smyth, Thomas Helwys, 
and thirty-six others formed the first church composed 
of Englishmen that is known to have stood for the 
baptism of believers only. 

Smyth is generally called the " Se-Baptist," which 
means that he baptized himself. There can be no doubt 
that such was the case, since an acknowledgment of the 
fact still exists in his own handwriting. In this respect 
he resembled Roger Williams. He held that the real 
apostolic succession is a succession not of outward ordi- 
nances and visible organizations, but of true faith and 
practice. He therefore believed that the ancient, true 



204 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

apostolic succession had been lost, and that the only way 
to recover it was to begin a church anew on the apostolic 
model. Accordingly, having first baptized himself, he 
baptized Helwys and the rest, and so constituted the 
church. They soon after issued a Confession of Faith, 
Arminian in its theology, but distinct in its claims that 
a church should be composed only of baptized believers, 
and that only such should " taste of the Lord's Supper." 

It is also certain that the baptism of Smyth and his 
followers was an affusion, for in a few months he became 
dissatisfied with what he had done, confessed that his 
Anabaptism was an error, and applied with some others 
for admission into a Mennonite church. A committee 
of Mennonite ministers was appointed to examine into 
the doctrine and practice of the applicants, and in their 
report they said : " We . . . also inquired for the 
foundation and form 1 of their baptism, and we have not 
found that there was any difference at all, neither in the 
one nor the other thing." Several Confessions — at least 
four in all — were issued by Smyth and this church, in 
which baptism is defined as " the external sign of the 
remission of sins, of dying and being made alive," as 
" washing with water," as " to be ministered only upon 
penitent and faithful persons," and the like; but nothing 
is said in any of them of immersion as the form of 
baptism. 

Smyth died in 1612, but before that the church he had 
been instrumental in founding, now reduced to some ten 
members, had disappeared from Holland. Persecution 
seems to have been less severe in England, and Thomas 

1 Some have been inclined (so Newman, " History of Anti-pedobaptism," 
p. 387) to understand " form of their baptism " not to refer " to the mode 
of applying the water," but " rather to the words spoken in connection 
with the administration of the ordinance." But this is directly contravened 
by the authority of John Smyth himself. In his " Character of the Beast " 
(p. 54) he clearly makes the distinction between the matter of baptism, a 
believing subject, and the form of baptism, a washing with water. 



THE EARLY DAYS 205 

Helwys, John Murton, and others returned to London, 
probably some time in 161 1, and founded the first Ana- 
baptist church composed of Englishmen known to have 
existed on English soil. This church was also Arminian 
in theology, and churches of this type came later to be 
called General Baptists, because they held to a general 
atonement for all men, while orthodox Calvinists then 
held to a " particular " atonement, for the elect only. 
By the year 1626 there were five such churches in Eng- 
land, though all were small, and in the aggregate con- 
tained about one hundred and fifty members. In 1644 
they had increased to forty-seven churches, according to 
their opponents; possibly there were more. Once they 
had a fair opportunity to preach New Testament truth 
among their countrymen, these churches throve rapidly in 
England. 

The fact must not be overlooked, however, that ten 
Baptist churches in England claim an earlier origin than 
this whose story has thus been told. Hill Cliff (1522), 
Eythorne, Coggeshall, Braintree (1550), Farringdon 
Road (1576), Crowle, Epworth (1599), Bridgewater, 
Oxford, Wedmore (1600). To substantiate these claims 
there is little evidence but tradition, of no great antiquity. 
Thomas Crosby, the earliest of our Baptist historians, 
who sought with praiseworthy diligence for all accessible 
facts, and was personally familiar with some of these 
localities, had either never heard such traditions or did 
not consider them even worthy of mention. In no case 
is there the smallest scrap of documentary evidence for 
such antiquity as is claimed. No title-deeds or records 
extend back much over two hundred years, few extend 
so far back. There is some archaeological evidence, in 
one or two cases, to prove that a certain site was used 
for religious services or as a burial-place, long before 
the beginning of the seventeenth century. The gap 






206 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

between these slender premises of fact and the conclusion 
sought to be drawn from them is so wide that only the 
most robust faith could span it. One who is capable of 
believing in the great antiquity of English Baptist 
churches on evidence so slender is quite capable of be- 
lieving on no evidence at all — which is the quickest and 
safest way. Let us return, then, to the history. 

The Calvinistic or Particular Baptists had a quite dif- 
ferent origin. The account of that origin given by Bap- 
tist historians generally, including the former editions of 
this work, rests on the authority of Thomas Crosby, the 
earliest historian of the Baptists. The documents on 
which Crosby depended have been made accessible, and 
show that he did not accurately follow his sources. As- 
suming the credibility of the documents — the question can- 
not be discussed here — the essential facts are as follows : 

A congregation of Separatists, or Dissenters from the 
Church of England, was gathered by the Rev. Henry 
Jacob in London, in 1616. After some years Jacob went 
to Virginia and John Lathrop became the pastor. Many 
were added to them, and discussions rose whether the 
parish churches could be regarded as true churches. In 
1633 there was a peaceable division on this issue, and a 
new church of seventeen persons was formed. This new 
church was evidently what we should now call a church 
of mixed membership; some of its members were cer- 
tainly of Anabaptist views, for the record adds : " Mr. 
Eaton, with some others [but not all], receiving a fur- 
ther baptism." Mr. John Spilsbury soon became pastor 
of this flock, which in 1638 received another secession of 
six members from the Jacob church, this composed wholly 
of Anabaptists. Not long after, this church seems to 
have wholly adopted Baptist principles and practices, and 
is therefore entitled to be called the first Particular Baptist 
church in England. 




Page 206 



William Kiffex 



THE EARLY DAYS 20? 

Returning now to the original church of Jacob and 
Lathrop, we find that Mr. Lathrop also emigrated to 
New England, leaving the flock again without a shep- 
herd. The records of the church then go on to say : 

1640. 3rd Mo: The Church became two by mutuall consent 
just half being with Mr. P. Barebone, & ye other halfe with Mr. 
H. Jessey. Mr. Richd Blunt wth him being convinced of Bap- 
tism yt also it ought to be by dipping in ye Body into ye 
Water, resembling Burial and riseing again Col. 2. 12, Rom. 6, 4 
had sober Conferance about in ye Church, & then wth some of 
the forenamed who also were so convinced ; and after Prayer & 
Conferance about their so enjoying it, none having then so 
practiced it in England to professed Believers, & hearing that 
some in and ye Nether Lands had so practiced, they agreed and 
sent over Mr. Rich'd Blunt (who understood Dutch) with Let- 
ters of Commendation, and who was kindly accepted there, and 
Returned wth Letters from them Jo: Batten a teacher there, 
and from that Church to such as sent him. 

1641. They proceed on therein, viz Those Persons yt 
ware perswaded Baptism should be by dipping ye Body had mett 
in two Companies, and did intend so to meet after this, all those 
Agreed to proceed alike togeather : and then manifesting (not 
by any formal Words) a Covenant (wch Word was Scrupled by 
some of them) but by mutuall desires and agreement each Testi- 
fied : Those two Companyes did set apart one to Baptize the 
rest: so it was Solemnly performed by them. 

Mr. Blunt baptized Mr. Blacklock yt was a Teacher amongst 
them, and Mr. Blunt being baptized, he and Mr. Blacklock Bap- 
tized ye rest of their friends yt ware so minded, and many being 
added to them they increased much. 

Another method of reviving immersion was taken by 
the Baptists of this period, as their writings bear witness. 
Thomas Crosby has stated it very accurately in these 
words : 

But the greatest number of the English Baptists, and the 
more judicious, looked upon all this [Blunt's mission to Holland] 
as needless trouble, and what proceeded from the old popish 



208 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

doctrine of right to administer the sacraments by an uninter- 
rupted succession, which neither the Church of Rome nor the 
Church of England, much less the modern dissenters, could prove 
to be with them. They affirmed, therefore, and practised ac- 
cordingly, that after a general corruption of baptism, an unbap- 
tized person might warrantably baptize, and so begin a 
reformation (i : 103). 

This was apparently the method adopted by the Spils- 
bury church, for its pastor strongly argued against the 
theory of succession, and upheld the right of a church 
of Christ by its own act to recover lost ordinances. 
" Where there is a beginning," he pithily says, " some 
must be first." 

In these two ways the practice of immersing believers 
in Christ was introduced among those churches that a 
few years later came to be known as Particular Baptists. 
We have no such definite account of the introduction of 
immersion among the Arminian churches, but we have 
no sufficient grounds for supposing that they anticipated 
their Calvinistic brethren. The only thing that points in 
that direction is a passage in " Religion's Peace," a book 
written by Leonard Busher in 1614. Busher may have 
been at one time connected with the Helwys congrega- 
tion at Amsterdam, and his book bears internal evidence 
of having been written and published there, but we can- 
not connect him more closely than this with the Baptists 
in England. In his book he says : " And such as shall 
willingly and gladly receive it [the gospel] he hath com- 
manded to be baptized in the water; that is, dipped for 
dead in the water." It is not a perfectly safe inference, 
however, from this teaching that there was a correspond- 
ing practice. That sort of logic would prove that both 
Luther and Calvin were immersionists, and lead us into 
all sorts of absurdities if it were consistently applied 
throughout the history of the church. Nothing is 



THE EARLY DAYS 200, 

commoner than to find lack of correspondence between 
teaching and practice. 

The churches afterwards known as General Baptists 
had from the first maintained close relations with the 
Mennonite churches of Holland. Their members, on 
going to Holland, were received without question into 
the Mennonite churches. Certain of their church dis- 
putes were referred to the Mennonite churches for arbi- 
tration. These facts indicate that they were agreed on 
the practice of baptism, which we know to have been 
aspersion among the Mennonites. But from the middle 
of the seventeenth century, or a little before, all traces 
of this union cease. The only reasonable explanation 
of the facts is that given by Mennonite writers, namely, 
the adoption of immersion by the English churches, 
which thus practically pronounced their Mennonite 
brethren unbaptized. 

For many years we find that the question of baptism 
was still debated among these English churches. Some, 
who agreed with their brethren in all other things, had 
not yet adopted the practice of immersion and were 
called the Old Men, or Aspersi; while the others were 
called the New Men, or Immersi, " because they were 
overwhelmed in their rebaptization." 1 So late as 
l ^S3 we fi n d the same difference of opinion still 
persisting. A Baptist writer of that date complains 
of what he calls a " mere demi-reformation that 
is made on this point on a party of men in Lincolnshire 
and elsewhere (of whom I suppose there are several con- 
gregations), who having long since discovered the true 
way of baptism as to the subjects, namely: That pro- 
fessing believers only, and not any infants, are to be bap- 
tized, but remaining ignorant of the true way and form 
of administering the ordinance, are fallen into the 

1 B. Rynes, "Mercurius Rusticus." London, 1646, p. 21. 
O 



210 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

frivolous way of sprinkling believers; which to do is as 
much no baptism at all, as to dip infants is no baptism 
of Christ's ordaining. Which people, for whose sakes, as 
well as for others, I write this, will be persuaded, I hope, 
in time, to be as to the outward form, not almost only, 
but altogether Christians, and rest no longer in that mere 
midway, mongrel reformation." 1 This is the last known 
case of the kind, and from about this time it is certain 
that all the Anabaptist churches of England adopted 
immersion, and are thenceforth properly called Baptists. 
A great mass of pamphlets and books relating to bap- 
tism began to pour from the presses of England from 
1640 onward. This revival of the practice of immersion 
by the Baptist churches is the only and also the sufficient 
explanation of this phenomenon. The controversy thus 
precipitated also accounts for the importance thenceforth 
assumed by the question of baptism in Baptist Confes- 
sions and in polemical writings by the Baptists of this 
period. Others had before this practised immersion, be- 
ing convinced that it is taught by the Scriptures, without 
teaching that immersion is essential to valid baptism. 
The opposition of the other English sects to the novel 
practice of immersion developed the Baptist doctrine rap- 
idly. The other Separatists of the period with one ac- 
cord attacked immersion as new-fangled, unnecessary, 
immodest, dangerous to life, and the like. Baptists re- 
torted by asserting that nothing else than immersion could 
be accepted as baptism. When the Continental Anabap- 
tists practised immersion, no special opposition was made 
to their practice, and they were therefore never impelled 
to lay any special emphasis upon its necessity. In this 
one difference of circumstance is the full explanation of 
the difference of doctrine obtaining between the 
immersing Anabaptists and the modern Baptists. 

1 " Baby Baptism mere Babyism," by S. Fisher. London, 1653, p. 464. 



THE EARLY DAYS 21 1 

By the year 1644 the number of Particular Baptist 
churches had increased to seven. In that year these 
seven churches united in issuing a Confession of Faith, 
composed of fifty articles, which is one of the chief 
landmarks of Baptist history. 

The Confession, besides giving a brief exposition of 
gospel truth according to the Calvinistic theology, pro- 
nounces baptism " an ordinance of the New Testament 
given by Christ, to be dispensed upon persons professing 
faith, or that are made disciples ; who, upon profession of 
faith, ought to be baptized, and afterward to partake of 
the Lord's Supper.'' It then specifies : 

That the way and manner of the dispensing this ordinance 
is dipping or plunging the body under water ; it being a sign, 
must answer the thing signified, which is, that interest the saints 
have in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ : and that 
as certainly as the body is buried under water and risen 
again, so certainly shall the bodies of the saints be raised by 
the power of Christ in the day of the resurrection, to reign with 
Christ. 

And a note to this section adds : " The word baptizo 
signifies to dip or plunge (yet so as convenient garments 
be upon both the administrator and subject, with all mod- 
esty) ." English Baptists were accused by their opponents 
of baptizing converts in a state of nakedness, and doing 
other scandalous things, hence the statement in paren- 
theses was necessary, and the 165 1 edition of the Con- 
fession adds these words : " Which is also our practice, 
as many eye-witnesses can testify." 

The Confessions issued before this time are not so 
explicit in defining baptism as immersion, but they are 
equally plain in placing baptism before participation in 
the Lord's Supper. One of the fourfold Confessions is- 
sued by the Smyth-Helwys church in Holland says : " The 
Holy Supper, according to the institution of Christ, is to 



212 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

be administered to the baptized." Indeed, in the whole 
history of Baptists not a Confession can be produced that 
advocates the invitation or admission to the Lord's table 
of the unbaptized. Nevertheless, some English Baptist 
churches, being formed of Separatist elements, did from 
the first claim and exercise liberty in respect to this 
ordinance. 

The Confession of 1644 is outspoken also in the advo- 
cacy of religious liberty as the right, and of good citizen- 
ship as the duty, of every Christian man. The following 
article is worth quoting in full, as the first publication 
of the doctrine of freedom of conscience, in an official 
document representing a body of associated churches : 

XLVIII. A civil magistracy is an ordinance of God, set up 
by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of 
them that do well; and that in all lawful things, commanded by 
them, subjection ought to be given by us in the Lord, not only 
for the wrath, but for conscience' sake; and that we are to 
make supplications and prayers for kings, and all that are in 
authority, that under them we may live a quiet and peaceable 
life in all godliness and honesty. 

The supreme magistracy of this kingdom we acknowledge to 
be King and Parliament. . . And concerning the worship of 
God, there is but one lawgiver. . . which is Jesus Christ. . . 
So it is the magistrate's duty to tender the liberty of men's con- 
sciences (Eccl. 8:8), (which is the tenderest thing unto all con- 
scientious men, and most dear unto them, and without which 
all other liberties will not be worth the naming, much less the 
enjoying), and to protect all under them from all wrong, injury, 
oppression, and molestation. . . And as we cannot do anything 
contrary to our understandings and consciences, so neither can 
we forbear the doing of that which our understandings and con- 
sciences bind us to do. And if the magistrates should require 
us to do otherwise, we are to yield our persons in a passive 
way to their power, as the saints of old have done (James 
5:4). 

This is a great landmark, not only of Baptists, but of 
the progress of enlightened Christianity. Those who 



THE EARLY DAYS 21 3 

published to the world this teaching, then deemed revo- 
lutionary and dangerous, held, in all but a few points of 
small importance, precisely those views of Christian truth 
that are held by Baptists to-day. For substance of doc- 
trine, any of us might subscribe to it without a moment's 
hesitation. On the strength of this one fact, Baptists 
might fairly claim that, whatever might have been said 
by isolated individuals before, they were the pioneer body 
among modern Christian denominations to advocate the 
right of all men to worship God, each according to the 
dictates of his own conscience, without let or hindrance 
from any earthly power. 

Among the names signed to this Confession are two 
of special significance in this early period of Baptist 
progress in England — William Kifr"en and Hanserd 
Knollys. Kiffen was born in London, in 1616. His fam- 
ily was of Welsh extraction. He lost his parents by the 
plague that scourged London in 1625, and was taken 
care of by relatives, whom he charged with misappropri- 
ating his patrimony. They apprenticed him to "a very 
mean calling" (brewer), and in his fifteenth year he 
ran away from his master. While wandering aimlessly 
about town, he saw people going into church and went 
in with them. The sermon on the fifth commandment, 
and the duties of servants to masters, caused him to 
return to his master, and also provoked in him a desire 
to hear other Puritan ministers. Soon he was convicted 
of sin, and after an experience not unlike that which 
Bunyan relates in his " Grace Abounding," he found 
peace in believing. He joined himself to an independent 
congregation (probably that church of Henry Jacob, of 
which so much has already been said), and some time 
afterwards left this to join the Baptist church of which 
John Spilsbury had become pastor. Not long thereafter 
he became pastor of a newly constituted Baptist church 



214 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

in London. This was certainly prior to 1644, but how 
long we do not know. 

About the same time that he became a Baptist preacher, 
Kiffen also became a merchant. His first venture was 
in a trading voyage to Holland, in 1643, an d two years 
later he engaged in business in that country with a 
young man of his congregation, and he adds : " It pleased 
God so to bless our endeavors, as from scores of pounds 
to bring it to many hundreds and thousands of pounds." 
This is his modest way of saying that he became one 
of the wealthiest and most influential merchants of Lon- 
don. He himself valued his success mainly because it 
enabled him to preach the gospel with less hindrance, 
and he used his large means generously to propagate 
the truth as he understood it. To his shrewd liberality 
the Baptists of England owed much of their progress 
during the seventeenth century. 

Kiffen's wealth exposed him to many persecutions, 
but also, it is likely, obtained for him many favors from 
those in power. He was the friend of kings and high 
officials, and though he doubtless valued such favor, he 
not infrequently found it costly. It is related that on one 
occasion Charles II. requested of this rich subject a 
" loan " of forty thousand pounds. Kiflen's ready wit 
did not fail him in this emergency. He answered, with 
all respect, that he could not possibly lend so large a 
sum, but he hoped his Majesty would honor him by ac- 
cepting a gift of ten thousand pounds. His Majesty 
was ever ready to bestow that particular form of honor 
on anybody, and graciously accepted the offer. Kiffen 
used to relate the story with glee in after years, and 
declared that by his timely liberality he had saved thirty 
thousand pounds. Full of years and labors and honors, 
Kiffen died in 1701. 

Hansen! Knollys, one of the most godly, learned, and 



THE EARLY DAYS 215 

laborious among the English Baptists of this time, was 
born at Chalkwell, Lincolnshire. His parents were re- 
ligious people, as well as possessed of some wealth. He 
was prepared by a private tutor and then sent to the 
University of Cambridge, where he took his degree in 
due course. Having had a religious training from boy- 
hood, he was in a condition of mind and heart to be 
impressed by sermons that he heard while a student, and 
he was converted. His piety while at the university 
was marked, and in his after years this early promise 
was quite fulfilled. 

After graduation, he was master of a school at Gains- 
borough for a while ; but in June, 1629, he was ordained 
by the bishop of Peterborough, first deacon, then pres- 
byter, of the Church of England. Not long after, the 
bishop of Lincoln presented him to the living of Hum- 
berstone, where he engaged most zealously in the work 
of a parish minister. He ordinarily preached four times 
on Sunday, and besides preached on every holiday. Both 
his training and natural inclinations inclined him toward 
the Puritan party in the church, and after some three 
years of service, his conscientious scruples regarding the 
wearing of the surplice, the sign of the cross in baptism, 
admitting to the Lord's Supper persons of notoriously 
wicked lives, and the like, made his position untenable. 
He had only to stifle his convictions, to compound with 
his conscience, to retain his place of honor and comfort 
in the church, with fair prospects of promotion. But 
he could not do this, and he manfully resigned his living 
to his bishop, frankly stating his reasons; and so much 
was he respected for his honesty, that the bishop con- 
nived at his continuing to preach in the diocese, without 
wearing the surplice or reading the service, though such 
procedure was strictly forbidden by law. 

This was a position impossible to maintain long; a 



2l6 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

man who did this was neither one thing nor another. 
Accordingly, about 1636, Knollys joined himself to the 
Separatists, as those Puritans were called who had been 
compelled by conscience to come out of the Church of 
England. This exposed him to active persecution, and 
he determined to emigrate to New England, where he 
understood that the Separatists had liberty. He landed 
in Boston, in 1638, after a voyage of much hardship. 
It is related of him, as showing how low his fortunes 
had ebbed, that by the time he had embarked on ship- 
board he had but six brass farthings left; but his wife 
produced five pounds that she had saved in happier days, 
and they were enabled to reach the new land. 

Soon after his arrival he had an opportunity to go to 
the new settlement of Piscataway (afterward called Do- 
ver), in New Hampshire, which needed a pastor. We 
have testimony to show that while here he opposed the 
baptism of infants, and probably for this reason Cotton 
Mather classes him among the Anabaptists. Mather, 
however, bears testimony to the excellent character of 
Knollys. 

In 1 64 1, Knollys was summoned home to England by 
his aged father, and he was so little of a Baptist as yet 
that he became a member of the Separatist congregation, 
of which at that time Henry Jessey was pastor. The 
records of that church inform us that in 1643 Knollys 
was unwilling to have his infant child baptized, which 
led to conferences on the subject and finally to a division, 
sixteen members withdrawing and forming a Baptist 
church. Whether it was this church or another that he 
gathered is uncertain, but in 1645 ne was formally or- 
dained pastor of a Baptist church in London, and from 
that time was known as one of the efficient leaders of 
this people. 

The Episcopal hierarchy had been abolished, and "lib- 




*T7i£ brut (mXlAtreCy 'Zffujtes qf&l& 
Ji^e£ 6]j /y& arts . 



Page 216 



THE EARLY DAYS 217, 

erty of prophesying " was now supposed to be enjoyed 
by all godly ministers. But the Presbyterians were de- 
termined on the ruins of the Church of England to 
erect an establishment of their own, and to silence all 
who did not agree with them. For a time Knollys 
preached in the parish churches, but was summoned to 
give account of himself before a committee of divines 
at Westminster. They forbade him to preach, but he 
only ceased to preach in the parish churches, gathering 
a congregation in a house of his own at Great St. Helen's, 
London. This was a sample of the " liberty " experi- 
enced by our Baptist forefathers under the dominion of 
the Presbyterians and the Long Parliament. 

After the Restoration, Knollys suffered long-continued 
hardships for the sake of the gospel. His popularity as 
a preacher was so great, and his influence so generally, 
acknowledged by Nonconformists, that to silence him 
was a special object of the upholders of the Church of 
England and the Act of Uniformity. He was imprisoned 
many times ; even in his eighty-fourth year he was in 
jail for six months, an act of revenge on the part of 
James II. because Knollys refused to use his influence 
with Baptists and other Dissenters to gain their approval 
for the illegal dispensations issued by that monarch. To 
escape these persecutions, Knollys and his family were 
obliged to change their residence often, and once he left 
England and spent some time in Holland and Germany. 

After a short illness, Knollys died in his ninety-third 
year, having given an example of constancy to his con- 
victions that is worthy of all admiration. A Puritan 
to the core, somewhat narrow and stern according to our 
notions to-day, he was yet a very lovable man, and com- 
pelled the respect of even those who most widely differed 
from him in matters of faith and practice. 

Both William Kiffen and Hanserd Knollys are known 



2l8 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

to have been buried in Bunhill Fields, London, where 
also the mortal remains of John Bunyan rest. Bunyan's 
tomb is still pointed out to the curious visitor, but all 
trace of the others has disappeared. A stone once marked 
the grave of Kiffen, and its inscription has been preserved 
by a diligent local historian, and that is now his sole 
memorial. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 

THE contest between Charles I. and his people had 
come to an acute crisis before the Confession of 
1644 was printed. He had showed, under the tutelage 
of Laud in the Church, the same imperious temper and 
the same persecuting spirit that he showed under Straf- 
ford's counsel in the State. It was all one to him 
whether Hampden refused to pay ship-money, or the ob- 
stinate Scots refused to accept his liturgy. Baptists fared 
hard during the earlier years of his reign, but from the 
meeting of the Long Parliament, in November, 1640, 
they had peace, and increased rapidly in numbers. Al- 
most to a man they were supporters of the Parliamentary 
cause, which was the cause of liberty, religious as well 
as civil. Large numbers of Baptists took service in the 
armies of Parliament, some of whom rose to a high 
rank, and were much trusted by the Lord Protector, 
Cromwell. 

The period of the civil war was thus one of com- 
parative immunity for those who had been persecuted, 
yet the toleration practically enjoyed by the Baptists was 
not a legal status; they still had no civil rights that 
their stronger neighbors were bound to respect; and it 
was only the dire necessity of uniting all forces against 
the king that led the Presbyterian Parliament to refrain 
from active measures of repression. The leading West- 
minster divines rebuked Parliament in sermons and 
pamphlets for suffering the Baptists to increase, but po- 
litical considerations were for a time paramount. A 

219 



220 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

single incident illustrates the Presbyterian idea of lib- 
erty of conscience at this time. In 1646, one Morgan, a 
Roman Catholic, unable to obtain priests' orders in Eng- 
land, went to Rome for them, and on his return, was 
hanged, drawn, and quartered, for this heinous offense. 
The unspeakable papist could not be tolerated on any 
terms by the Presbyterian party. 

Against a general toleration the Presbyterians pro- 
tested vigorously. Thomas Edwards declared that 
" Could the devil effect a toleration, he would think he 
had gained well by the Reformation, and made a good 
exchange of the hierarchy to have a toleration for it." 
Even the saintly Baxter said : " I abhor unlimited lib- 
erty and toleration of all, and think myself easily able 
to prove the wickedness of it." Well might Milton, in- 
censed by such teachings and by attempts in Parliament 
to give them effect, break forth in his memorable pro- 
test, moved by a righteous indignation that could not 
find expression in honeyed words or courteous phrases: 

Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword 

To force our consciences, that Christ set free, 

And ride us with a classic hierarchy? 

And with bitter truth he added: 

New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large. 

Not in vain was his subsequent appeal to Cromwell 
for protection from these wolves in sheep's clothing, who 
had broken down one tyranny only to erect on its base 
another more odious: 

Peace hath her victories 
No less renowned than war ; new foes arise, 
Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains; 
Help us to save free conscience from the paw 
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw, 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 221 

Nothing but the overthrow of the Long Parliament, 
and with it the Presbyterian domination, prevented a 
more tyrannous and implacable persecution than any 
that disgraces the fair page of England's annals. One 
of the last acts of the Presbyterian party was to pass a 
law (1648) making death the penalty for eight errors in 
doctrine, including the denial of the Trinity, and pre- 
scribing indefinite imprisonment for sixteen other errors, 
one of which was the denial of infant baptism. 

Fortunately for the Baptists, the furious extremists 
among the Presbyterians were never able to do more 
than occasionally annoy those whom they so cordially 
detested. It is related of William Kiffen that on July 
12, 1655, he was brought before the Lord Mayor, charged 
with violation of the statute against blasphemies and 
heresies, in that he had preached " that the baptism of 
infants was unlawful." The accused merchant-preacher 
was treated with great consideration by the mayor, who, 
on the plea of being very busy, deferred further con- 
sideration of the case. There is nothing to indicate 
that Mr. Kiffen ever heard more about the matter. 
Others, less powerful, were by no means so fortunate. 

But the excesses of the Presbyterian party hastened its 
downfall. The real power in the State was the army, 
composed mainly of Independents, but containing many 
Baptists. As the revolution proceeded, it inevitably be- 
came a military despotism, the head of the army ex- 
ercising the civil authority more or less under forms of 
law. 

During the Protectorate a fair measure of religious 
liberty prevailed. Cromwell himself came nearer than 
any public man of his time to adopting the Baptist doc- 
trine of equal liberty of conscience for all men. He 
came, at least, to hold that a toleration of all religious 
views — such as existed among Protestants, that is to 



222 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

say — was both right and expedient; though he seems to 
have had no insuperable objections to a Presbyterian or 
Independent Church, established by law and maintained 
by the State. He was compelled to maintain a State re- 
ligion, but he maintained it in the interest of no one sect. 
He admitted all whom we now call evangelical Christians 
to an equal footing in religious privileges, appointing a 
committee of Triers, of different sects, to examine the 
qualifications of incumbents and candidates. The only 
standard these Triers were permitted to set up was god- 
liness and ability to edify; no minister was to be either 
appointed or excluded for his views of doctrine or polity. 
Several Baptists served as Triers, and many others re- 
ceived benefices during this time — a very inconsistent 
course for Baptists to take, and one that it is not easy 
to pardon, for they sinned against light. 

From time to time Baptists were accused of sedition, 
and various pretexts were found to justify their per- 
secution; but Cromwell could never be induced to move 
against them. It has been reserved for writers of our 
own day to press these stale slanders against a loyal and 
upright people. By such it has been urged, with in- 
sistence and bitterness, that the Baptists were not sincere 
in their professions of zealous devotion to the principle 
of liberty of conscience for all; or, at least, that the 
declarations already quoted from their Confessions and 
from their published writings did not represent the Bap- 
tists as a whole — that there were Baptists as intolerant 
and as desirous of persecuting their opponents as the 
most zealous Presbyterian of them all. 

The events of 1653 are said to furnish full confirma- 
tion of this view of the case. In that year the " Rump " 
Parliament was dissolved, and Cromwell was proclaimed 
Lord Protector, according to the provisions of an In- 
strument of Government framed by a convention he had 




Page 



Oliver Cromwell 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 223 

called for the purpose of devising a scheme to regulate 
the affairs of the nation. It would seem that some of 
the Baptists were ardent republicans, and in these pro- 
ceedings of Cromwell they saw only the workings of his 
ambition to be king. We know that four years later 
certain Baptists protested against the proposition to con- 
fer this title upon him, and that their protest had weight. 
Some of them protested now; and the Rev. Vavasor 
Powell denounced Cromwell from the pulpit at a meeting 
in Blackfriars of certain Fifth Monarchy men. There 
were fears also for a time of trouble in Ireland from the 
Baptists, who were reported to be extremely disaffected 
with the new government. On these facts a charge is 
based that a part of the Baptists, at least, were disposed 
toward a religious movement that must have resulted in 
persecution. 

The simple fact is that the Baptists, as a body, were 
loyal to the Commonwealth and its head as the de facto 
government of England; and the few who were disaf- 
fected opposed Cromwell on civil grounds. Among these 
was Gen. Thomas Harrison (who, however, did not be- 
come a Baptist until 1657). This party was republi- 
can and suspected Cromwell of kingly ambitions, and 
hence opposed him. Certain of these men, notably Har- 
rison, also believed that the time was drawing near for 
the Fifth Monarchy. These were enthusiasts, misled by 
the study of prophecy — as had happened in the former 
ages of the church, among the medieval Anabaptists and 
the earlier Montanists, for example — into a notion that 
the last times were at hand, and that Christ was about 
to set up an earthly kingdom and reign with his saints 
a thousand years. Men's laws and traditions were to 
be altogether swept away, and the world was to be ruled 
by the law of Christ. This would, of itself, exclude the 
idea of persecution when once this kingdom should have 



224 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

been established ; and before its establishment persecution 
would not have been possible. It is not true that the 
Fifth Monarchy men, as a body, believed in setting up 
this kingdom by the sword, as their public declarations 
clearly show. To prove that a Baptist was concerned 
in these Fifth Monarchy demonstrations does not show 
that he cherished any idea of punishing dissent by any 
form of persecution; still less does it show that his 
brethren sympathized with any persecuting notions. 

But we have abundant testimony that the great body of 
the Baptists had no sympathy with the chiliastic ideas 
that lay at the basis of the Fifth Monarchy movement; 
that they utterly condemned all conspiracies against the 
de facto government; and that they exhorted all their 
brethren to follow their example in rendering loyal 
obedience to the powers that be. An extant letter from 
William KifTen and others to the Baptists in Ireland 
gives interesting evidence as to the feeling of the English 
Baptists. The writers express sorrow that " there is 
raised up in many amongst you (the Baptists in Ireland) 
a spirit of great dissatisfaction and opposition against 
this present authority," and exhort them to think bet- 
ter of their determination to protest publicly against 
Cromwell. They say : 

And this we are clearly satisfied, in that the principles held 
forth by those meeting in Blackfriars, under pretense of the 
Fifth Monarchy, or setting up the kingdom of Christ, to which 
many of those lately in power adhered, had it been prosecuted, 
would have brought as great dishonor to the name of God, and 
shame and contempt to the whole nation, as we think could have 
been imagined. 

The letter closes with a solemn appeal in these words : 

We do therefore beseech you for the Lord's sake and for the 
truth's sake, that it be not evil spoken of men, seriously weigh 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 225 

these things; for surely if the Lord gives us hearts we have a 
large advantage put into our hands to give a public testimony 
in the face of the world. That our principles are not such as 
they have been generally judged by most men to be; which is, 
that we deny authority and would pull down all magistracy. And 
if any trouble should arise, either with you or us, in the nation, 
which might proceed to the shedding of blood, would not it all 
be imputed and charged upon the baptized churches? And what 
grief and sorrow would be administered to us, your brethren, to 
hear the name of God blasphemed by ungodly men through your 
means? This we can say, that we have not had any occasion 
of sorrow from any of the churches in this nation with whom 
we have communion; they, with one heart, desiring to bless 
God for their liberty, and with all willingness to be subject to 
the present authority. And we trust to hear the same of you, 
having lately received an epistle written to us by all the churches 
amongst you, pressing us to a strict walking with God, and warn- 
ing of us to take heed of formality, the love of this world; that 
we slight not our mercy in the present liberties we enjoy. 

Whether to this appeal or to the sober second thought 
is to be attributed the subsequent quiet of the Irish Bap- 
tists is not quite certain, but a letter in Thurloe's " State 
Papers " informs us that there was no further trouble : 

As to your grand affairs in Ireland, especially as to the Ana- 
baptist party, I am confident they are much misconceived in 
England. Upon the change of affairs here was discontent 
enough, but very little animosity. For certainly never yet any 
faction, so well fortified by all the offices, military and civil, 
almost in the whole nation, did quit their interest with more 
silence. 

The Baptists were conscious that toleration was not 
likely to continue long unless the principle were incor- 
porated in the law of the land. They continued in their 
writings and Confessions, therefore, to urge the duty of 
all Christians to tolerate those who differed from them 
in religious belief. With this they uniformly coupled a 
disclaimer of any such doctrine of liberty as implied 
p 



226 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

license, and enforced the duty of the Christian to render 
obedience to the civil magistrate in all secular affairs. 

In the year 1660 Charles Stuart was brought back with 
great rejoicing to the throne of his fathers. The Bap- 
tists must have seen in this event the death blow to their 
hopes of religious liberty, yet it does not appear that 
they raised voice or hand against the new king, though 
they were far from trusting his smooth words and prom- 
ises of toleration. He was hardly seated on his throne 
when one Thomas Venner and a band of Fifth Mon- 
archists and other irreconcilables made an insurrection, 
whose object was the dethronement of the new monarch 
and the setting up of the kingdom of Christ on earth. 
The slanders of the time accuse the Baptists of complicity 
in this disturbance. Beyond the repetition of these stale 
slanders there is not a particle of evidence producible 
that any Baptists took part in the insurrection. Con- 
clusive evidence that they did not we have in their pro- 
test made at the time, and in the verdict of every candid 
Pedobaptist historian who has carefully gone over the 
facts. Venner himself was a Pedobaptist, and it is not 
known that a single Baptist was among his followers. 
Nevertheless, persecution on account of alleged disloyalty 
and heresies was active and bitter. 

The death of Thomas Harrison cannot, however, be 
called a case of persecution. His case stands by itself. 
The difference between a patriot and a rebel has been 
defined somewhat as follows : " The man who succeeds 
is a patriot; the man who fails is a rebel." If George 
Washington had failed, he would have been hanged like 
Robert Emmet, and schoolboys would now be reading 
books in which his treason would be appropriately con- 
demned. Thomas Harrison failed at last, after a period 
of complete success, and he went to his grave so loaded 
down with ignominy that few have had courage since 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 227 

to plead his cause. He deserves a rehearing in the court 
of the world's justice. 

He was born in Cheshire, and his father was a butcher ; 
hence, as Mrs. Hutchinson sneeringly remarked in her 
" Memoirs," he was " a mean man's son." Nor does 
Mistress Lucy fail to record several ancedotes, illustrating 
his love of display and fine clothes, as a foil to the per- 
fections of Colonel Hutchinson. Nevertheless, when the 
pinch came, Harrison, the " mean man's son," played 
the Christian hero, while the well-born colonel played the 
coward and meanly truckled to save his life — and 
succeeded, but lost his honor forever. 

Little is known of Harrison's early life. He must have 
had a fair education, and became clerk to a solicitor. 
Early in the struggle between Charles I. and his Parlia- 
ment he enlisted in the parliamentary army, beginning 
as cornet, the equivalent of a second lieutenant of cavalry. 
By bravery and fidelity he was advanced to the rank of 
captain, and having attracted the notice of Cromwell, was 
made a colonel of cavalry after the remodeling of the 
army. It was the policy thereafter to promote officers 
who, besides military capacity, were men of piety and 
intelligence, and Harrison rose fast, until he became 
major-general and ranked next to Cromwell himself in 
the respect of the army. By various means, in none of 
which do his enemies charge him with any dishonor, he 
acquired a considerable estate, and lived in a manner be- 
coming the second man in England. It is this rapid pro- 
motion and access of power that doubtless roused the 
jealousy of the Hutchinsons and that explain the ref- 
erences to Harrison in pious Mrs. Lucy's " Memoirs." 

When the war was over and Charles I. was a prisoner, 
the question rose what to do with him. The army was 
tired of fighting, and demanded summary measures. This 
demand was resisted until it was discovered that Charles 



228 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

was plotting for further uprisings on his behalf, and then 
his fate was sealed. By vote of Parliament, a high court 
of justice was appointed to try the king. Harrison was 
one of the most prominent members of the court, and 
his name was signed in bold characters to the death war- 
rant of Charles I. The verdict of history is that while 
Charles Stuart richly deserved his fate, it was a political 
blunder thus to make of him a martyr ; but that Harrison 
could not be expected to see at the time. His act was 
that of patriot who did what he believed to be best for 
his country. It is difficult to read with patience what 
has been written by many historians concerning the death 
of a king who plunged his country into civil war because 
he neither could nor would keep his word, and who 
deserved forty deaths by his perfidy and cruelty. 

But Harrison had no mind to have King Noll substi- 
tuted for King Charles; he had had enough of kings, 
and was for a republic. So was the army. Cromwell's 
doings were regarded with great suspicion ; his title of 
Lord Protector was looked upon as a preliminary to 
assuming a higher title; his government was more arbi- 
trary and despotic than that of the Stuarts. Harrison 
and the army were uneasy and became estranged from 
their former leader. So near to an open breach did they 
come that twice, as a matter of precaution, Cromwell im- 
prisoned Harrison for a time, without any warrant but 
his sword, with no accusation, and finally released him 
without trial. At length Cromwell was compelled to give 
a definite refusal to the request, doubtless made with his 
own connivance and at his desire, that he would assume 
the title and state of king. The refusal was made with 
many sighs, but the army was hopelessly opposed, and 
Harrison in this matter represented the army. It was 
due to his firmness that the house of Cromwell did not 
succeed the house of Stuart on the throne of England. 




Page 228 



General Thomas Harrison 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 229 

General Harrison and his wife were baptized in 1657, 
in the dead of winter, when it was so cold that the ice 
had to be broken for the immersion. This was but three 
years before his death, and he was never so identified 
with Baptists as has been commonly supposed, though 
he had rather inclined toward that despised body of 
Christians for years before he joined them. 

After the restoration, Harrison well knew that he 
could expect no mercy. The regicides, as the judges of 
Charles I. were called, were expressly excepted from 
all proclamations of amnesty. Nevertheless, he refused 
either to fly or to truckle, but remained quietly at home, 
calmly awaiting the worst. He had not long to wait. 
He was arrested, sent to the Tower, and soon after tried. 
He was permitted to make no defense, and an executioner 
stood at his side in the dock with a halter in his hand. 
His condemnation was inevitable, but English courts of 
justice were never so disgraced, even in the days of the 
brutal Jeffreys, as by the means taken to secure it. 

The sentence of death was carried out with equal bar- 
barity. We have accounts of it from two eye-witnesses, 
Samuel Pepys and General Ludlow. Both agree that Har- 
rison bore himself with calmness and fortitude. He was 
first hanged, then cut down while still living, his bowels 
cut out and thrown into the fire before his eyes ; then his 
head was cut off, his body divided into quarters, and these 
gory members displayed in public places. And this in 
Christian England, in the year 1660! No wonder that, 
as Ludlow says, Harrison's bearing throughout his trial 
and execution was such " that even his enemies were as- 
tonished and confounded." They alleged nothing dis- 
creditable in his life, and his death was as honorable to 
him as it was disgraceful to the people of England. 

Nor was the case of John James one of persecution 
in form, though there is every reason to believe it was 



23O A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

such in fact. He was arrested while preaching to his 
flock, a Seventh-day Baptist church in London, and 
brought to trial on the charge of treason. The evidence 
against him seems to be rank perjury, attributing to 
him such sayings as that " the king was a bloody tyrant, 
a bloodsucker, a bloodthirsty man," that " he much feared 
they had not improved their opportunity when they had 
the power in their hands ; that it would not be long before 
they had power again, and then they would improve it 
better." Every effort was made to induce some of the 
congregation to confirm these charges, but they unani- 
mously maintained that they never heard such words. 
But there was no great difficulty in suborning wretches 
to swear away the life of a Dissenting preacher, and he 
was speedily found guilty. On the 26th of November 
he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, and his 
head was placed on a pole near his meeting-house in 
Whitechapel. 

It is probably unjust to hold Charles II. responsible 
for the persecutions that disgraced his reign. There is 
no good reason to suppose him insincere in his Breda 
declaration of " a liberty to tender consciences, and that 
no man shall be disquieted or called in question for dif- 
ferences of opinion in matters of religion, which do not 
disturb the peace of the kingdom." The good faith of 
his promise, in the same declaration, to approve any 
measure of toleration that his Parliament might pass 
cannot be questioned, for he was anxious that such a 
measure might be enacted, so that the Roman Catholics 
of England might enjoy toleration. 

But the first Parliament of Charles was composed 
largely of young men, not old enough to remember the 
misrule of the first Charles and his ministers, but dis- 
tinctly remembering the harshness and insolence of the 
Puritan rule. Vindictive legislation was certain to be 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 23 1 

enacted by such a body, and neither the king nor his 
advisers could do much to restrain these anti-Puritan 
legislators. A new Act of Uniformity reenacted the 
prayer-book of Elizabeth, with a few modifications, and 
required that every minister who had not received Epis- 
copal ordination should procure such orders before Au- 
gust 24, 1662. On that day, the anniversary of the mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew, two thousand of the most 
learned and godly ministers in England were driven from 
their pulpits — a loss from which the Church of England 
has never recovered to this day. 

A series of laws was now passed against those who 
refused conformity to the Established Church and its 
rites. In 1663 the Conventicle Act forbade all religious 
meetings in private houses of more than five persons 
not belonging to the family. In 1665 the Five Mile Act 
prohibited any Dissenting minister from going within five 
miles of any borough or corporate town. In 1673 the 
Test Act excluded from all public offices every one who 
could not produce a certificate from a clergyman that 
he had within a year partaken of the communion accord- 
ing to the rites of the Church of England. By these 
laws, those who refused, for conscience' sake, to con- 
form to the church established by law were deprived of 
all their religious and a great part of their civil rights. 

Doubtless Charles II. had promised more than any 
mortal could have performed; doubtless, also, he might 
have performed more had he cared to do it. These were 
not laws after his heart — they bore too hard on Ro- 
manists for that — but as he was powerless to protect 
them, he cared little that all other Dissenters from the 
Church of England were harshly treated. Baptists did 
not fare harder than many others. If they kept perfectly 
quiet they were not molested; but if they assembled for 
religious meetings they became violators of law, and the 



232 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

man who preached to them was reasonably certain of a 
long incarceration, if he did not receive stripes and the 
stocks as well. Yet in spite of this persecution, Baptists 
increased in numbers rapidly. Britons are a sturdy folk, 
and rather disposed to sympathize with one who is hit 
hard; so the more Baptists were forbidden to meet, the 
more people flocked to their meetings. 

The typical Baptist preacher of the time was John 
Bunyan, a man of the common people, a tinker by trade, 
one who knew little literature but his English Bible, but 
who knew that from lid to lid as few know it in these 
days. We learn of his early life only from his own ac- 
count : that he was wild, irreligious, fonder of sports than 
of the church, is plain ; but his self-accusations of desper- 
ate wickedness we may discount heavily. When a man 
calls himself the vilest of sinners he always uses the words 
in a strict theological sense, and would quickly resent 
being charged with actual vileness, as Bunyan did, when 
he hotly denied the charge that he had been unchaste. 
After a long conflict of soul, in which he more than 
once gave himself up as eternally lost, Bunyan was at 
length soundly converted. He was never a very orthodox 
Baptist ; he seems to have had his children christened 
in the Established Church, and it is uncertain whether 
he was himself ever baptized on profession of faith; he 
repudiated the name Anabaptist or Baptist as the badge 
of a sect, and desired to be called merely a Chris- 
tian; he vigorously promulgated and defended the prac- 
tice of communing with the unbaptized; yet in spite 
of these vagaries his fundamental notions were those 
of a Baptist. As a preacher he had great influence in 
his day, but his chief work was done with the pen. It 
is one of the marvels of literature that a man of such 
antecedents and training should have written books that 
from the day of publication took an undisputed rank 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 233 

among the classics of our language. The " Pilgrim's 
Progress," the hardly less popular " Holy War," and 
" Grace Abounding," are a trio not to be matched in the 
history of Christianity. 

This achievement of Bunyan's we probably owe to the 
fact that his active evangelical work was interrupted by 
a long imprisonment, amounting with several short in- 
tervals to about thirteen years. His crime was the preach- 
ing of the gospel, nothing more; but he would have 
been released much sooner had he been willing to pledge 
himself not to offend again. This the sturdy preacher 
would not do; if he had the opportunity again he must 
preach, and so he avowed; consequently in prison he 
stayed until the administration of the law was greatly 
relaxed, and he was set free with a multitude of others 
in like case. 

It is to his third and last imprisonment that we owe his 
immortal allegory — a book rendered into more languages 
than any other save the Bible itself; a book which, next 
to the Bible, has been the most effective teacher of 
peasant and prince ; which has been the never- failing 
delight of childhood, has comforted our weary hours 
in manhood, and will be our treasure in old age. As 
our experience broadens and deepens we shall see new 
beauties in it, for it is a book of which it may be truly 
said that it " was not of an age, but for all time." 

How many of us have taken the journey with Chris- 
tian, not in imagination merely, but in sober fact. We 
have borne the same intolerable burden, have entered, 
like him, the little wicket-gate at Evangelist's bidding — 
falling perchance, by the way, into the Slough of Des- 
pond, or misled by Mr. Worldly Wiseman's bad ad- 
vice — and have, like him, lost our heavy load at the foot 
of the cross. We have had to climb the Hill Difficulty, 
and not a few of us have been seduced into By-path 



234 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Meadows, only to fall into the clutches of Giant De- 
spair, and to be cast into Doubting Castle. We have 
been tempted by the gay shows of Vanity Fair, and 
have passed through the dangers of the Enchanted 
Ground. We have been cheered on our way by Hopeful 
and Faithful, instructed by Interpreter, and entertained 
at the House Beautiful. On one day we have caught 
glimpses of the Delectable Mountains, only on the next 
to enter the Valley of Humiliation, and fight for our 
lives with Apollyon. We have seen one and another of 
our companions pass through the dark river, whose 
waters our feet must soon enter, and happy are we to 
whom a vision has been granted of the Shining Ones, 
conducting them into the gates of the City which, when 
we have seen, we have wisht ourselves among them. 

The events of the reign of James II. were favorable 
to the development of a spirit of toleration among Prot- 
estants, who were driven into a closer political and re- 
ligious alliance by the fear of Roman Catholic suprem- 
acy. The king in some cases exercised his pretended 
power of dispensation to protect Baptists from the exe- 
cution of their laws; but while they accepted the im- 
munity thus offered, they gave no approval to the high- 
handed proceedings of the monarch. In pursuance of 
his policy of securing Nonconformist support, the king 
appointed William Kiffen alderman of the ward of Cheap. 
Mr. Kiffen was much disturbed, but as counsel advised 
him that refusal might entail a fine of thirty thousand 
pounds, he reluctantly qualified for the office. He suc- 
ceeded in obtaining his discharge, however, nine months 
later. The project was a failure. Neither Baptists nor 
any other Nonconformists were to be hoodwinked, nor 
could they be flattered or bribed into approval of the 
overriding of the laws of England by royal prerogative, 
even though those laws might press hard on themselves, 




/^Lc/&* ^^^vgyosn. 



Page 234 



THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 235 

The king's persistence could not overcome the opposition 
of the people, but it could and did lose him his crown. 

The revolution that overthrew James placed on the 
throne the Prince of Orange, the descendant of that 
heroic leader of the Netherlands in their long struggle 
to throw off the yoke of Roman Catholic Spain, the first 
ruler in modern history who was statesman enough and 
Christian enough to incorporate the principle of religious 
liberty into his country's laws. Thanks to William III., 
the Act of Toleration was passed in 1689, which, though 
a mass of absurdities and inconsistencies when carefully 
analyzed, was yet a measure of practical justice to the 
majority, and of great relief to all. The penal laws 
against dissenters from the Church of England were 
not repealed, but Baptists and most other Protestant 
Dissenters were exempted from their operation. Roman 
Catholics and Jews were left still subject to the penal 
laws, and men so enlightened and liberal-minded as 
Tillotson and Locke protested against granting tolera- 
tion to them. From that day the grosser forms of per- 
secution ceased forever, as regarded all Protestant bodies, 
though the principle of complete religious liberty has 
never yet found general acceptance in England. 

The Baptists of the seventeenth century had many curi- 
ous customs, some of which were borrowed from them 
by the Friends, and survive among the latter body to 
this day. The quaint garb of the Quaker is that of the 
seventeenth century Baptist. In public worship men and 
women sat on opposite sides of the house, both partici- 
pating in the exhorting and " prophesying," as the 
" Spirit moved." Whether singing was an allowable 
part of worship was fiercely disputed, and a salaried or 
" hireling " ministry was in great disfavor. The im- 
position of hands was practised, in the ordination not 
only of pastors, but of deacons, and in many churches 



236 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

hands were laid on all who had been baptized, an act 
that has given place among American Baptists, at least, 
to the " hand of fellowship." Fasting was a common ob- 
servance, feet-washing was practised by many churches, 
though its obligation was earnestly questioned, and the 
anointing of the sick was so common as to be almost 
the rule. Pastors and deacons were often elected by the 
casting of lots, and love feasts before the Lord's Supper 
were a common practice. 

The supervision of members' lives was strict. Marry- 
ing out of meeting, as among the Friends, was followed 
by excommunication, and the amusements that might be 
indulged in were carefully limited. Disputes between 
husbands and wives, between masters and servants, were 
made subjects of church discipline and adjudication, and 
such offenses as covetousness, slander, and idleness were 
severely dealt with. To the Baptists of to-day this kind 
of discipline seems a meddlesome interference with per- 
sonal rights and private affairs, and it has fallen into 
disuse in all but a few localities. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE SECOND REFORMATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 

FEW people have borne the ordeal of persecution 
better than the English Baptists; but for a century 
after the passage of the Act of Toleration it seemed that 
they were unable to bear freedom. In the history of 
Christianity it has often happened that the people of God 
have grown marvelously in spite of opposition and per- 
secution, but have languished in times of comparative 
prosperity — that a sect that fire and sword could not 
suppress has degenerated and disintegrated or finally dis- 
appeared when every external hindrance to prosperity 
had been removed. The English Baptists were to furnish 
another instance of this kind. After 1689 they were 
given a measure of toleration such as they had never 
known in England — since it was toleration secured and 
clearly defined by law, not given by the arbitrary will of 
one man. There was no external obstacle to their mak- 
ing rapid, continuous, and solid growth. Every indica- 
tion pointed toward a career of uninterrupted progress 
and prosperity. Yet fifty years after the passage of 
the Act of Toleration, the Baptists of England were 
scarcely more numerous than they were at the accession 
of William III., while as to spiritual power they had 
dwindled to a painful state of deadness and inefficiency. 
At first, indeed, they appeared likely to grow with 
unusual rapidity. The Confessions issued by them at 
about this time show how quickly they felt the impulse 
of hope, and how rapid, for a season, was their develop- 
ment. In 1677, tne Particular churches published a modi- 

237 



238 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

fied form of the Westminster Confession, which they 
reissued in 1688. This still forms the basis of the Eng- 
lish Confessions, and, under the name of the Philadelphia 
Confession, is the system of doctrine approved by a large 
number of Baptist churches of our Southern and South- 
western States. The General Baptist brethren issued 
their Confession in 1678, and it is noticeable that its 
Arminianism is of a type that can hardly be distinguished 
from the milder forms of Calvinism. But while the im- 
mediate effect of toleration was stimulating, its later re- 
sult was unfavorable to sound growth. Centralizing 
tendencies manifested themselves, false doctrine crept in, 
and there was a marked decline of spirituality. 

The centralizing tendencies were strongest among the 
General Baptists. By 1671, a General Assembly had been 
organized. This body from the first undertook to exer- 
cise powers incompatible with the independence of the 
churches. Not content with such legitimate activities 
as proposing plans of usefulness, recommending cases 
requiring pecuniary support, and devising means for the 
spread of the gospel, it undertook the reformation of in- 
consistent or immoral conduct in ministers and private 
Christians, the suppression of heresy, the reconciling of 
differences between individuals and churches, and giving 
advice in difficult cases to individuals and churches. 
Some Baptists of our own day, who lament the lack of 
a " strong government," will find this something closely 
approaching their ideal. 

But mark the sequel. One Matthew Caffyn, a Sussex 
pastor of undoubted piety and alleged (but doubtful) 
learning, was charged with unsound views concerning 
the nature of Christ. There is little doubt that his the- 
ology, if sound at first, came to be Arian. He denied 
the Deity of Christ, though calling him " divine " — a 
fine-spun distinction that some modern Unitarians also 



THE SECOND REFORMATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 239 

make. Two parties sprang up in the Assembly, and the 
body was finally divided in 1689, when Caffyn's views 
were pronounced heretical. A new Assembly was formed, 
and by 1750 the major part of the General Baptists had 
become Unitarian in their beliefs. This was followed by 
worldliness, lax discipline, the superficial preaching of 
mere morality, and the members fell away in large num- 
bers. In a petition that he presented to Charles II., 
Thomas Grantham declared that there were twenty 
thousand General Baptists in England; in the days of 
George II. there were probably not half that number; 
and of these a large part had the form of godliness 
without the power. The " strong government " had 
miserably failed to repress heresy or to prevent schism. 

The Particular Baptists organized the first Associations ; 
the Somerset, in 1653, which became extinct about 1657 ; 
and the Midland, formed in 1655 and reconstructed in 
1690, which still exists. Their General Assembly was 
organized in 1689, by the agency of the London churches, 
and this body also still lives. At its fourth meeting, in 
1692, the Association had in its fellowship one hundred 
and seven churches. Warned by the experience of their 
General brethren, they " disclaimed all manner of su- 
periority or superintendency over the churches." They 
were willing to give advice in regard to queries, but had 
no notion of becoming a court of appeals to settle church 
quarrels and try heretics. This was not for lack of 
heretics to try, for the Particular churches had their 
difficulties at this time with certain troublers in Israel, 
who professed Antinomian doctrines and complete sancti- 
fication, the results of which teachings were disputes and 
divisions that caused a great decline. 

Hyper-Calvinism was developed in one section of the 
Particular churches, and everywhere proved a blighting 
doctrine. The London Association, formed in 1704 by 



240 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

delegates from thirteen churches, deemed it necessary to 
condemn the Antinomian perversion of Calvinism — re- 
garding its action, however, not a judicial decision, but 
the deliberate opinion of a representative body of Baptists. 
The ablest and most learned of the Baptists of this time, 
John Gill, cannot be absolved from responsibility for 
much of this false doctrine. He was the son of a Dis- 
senting minister and a native of Northamptonshire (born 
at Kettering, 1697). As a Dissenter he could not be 
matriculated at either of the Universities, but, pursuing 
his education under private tutors, he became a great 
scholar — in the classics, in biblical studies, and in rabin- 
nical lore he was the equal of any. His vigorous mind 
was not weighed down by his erudition. Though not 
eloquent as a preacher, he was an industrious writer of 
books highly esteemed in their day and very influential. 
His " Commentary " on the Bible is more learned than 
perspicuous, and Robert Hall once characterized it as 
" a continent of mud, sir." If this be regarded as a 
hasty and unjust criticism, the praise of Toplady must 
be acknowledged to go to the other extreme : " If any 
man can be supposed to have trod the whole circle of 
human learning, it was Doctor Gill. . . It would per- 
haps try the constitutions of half the literati in England, 
only to read with care and attention the whole of what 
he said. As deeply as human sagacity, enlightened by 
grace, could penetrate, he went to the bottom of 
everything he engaged in." 

Doctor Gill's " Body of Divinity," published in 1769, 
was a great treatise of the rigid supralapsarian type of 
Calvinism, and long held its place as a theological text- 
book. This type of Calvinism can with difficulty be dis- 
tinguished from fatalism and antinomianism. If Gill did 
not hold, as his opponents charged, that the elect live in 
a constant state of sanctifkation (because of the imputed 




Page 240 



John Gill 



THE SECOND REFORMATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 24 1 

righteousness of Christ), even while they commit much 
sin, he did hold that because of God's election Christians 
must not presume to interfere with his purposes by in- 
viting sinners to the Saviour, for he will have mercy on 
whom he will have mercy, and on no others. This is 
practically to nullify the Great Commission ; and, in con- 
sequence of this belief, Calvinistic Baptist preachers 
largely ceased to warn, exhort, and invite sinners; hold- 
ing that, as God will have mercy on whom he will have 
mercy, when he willed he would effectually call an elect 
person, and that for anybody else to invite people to 
believe was useless, if not an impertinent interference 
with the prerogatives of God. What wonder that a 
spiritual dry-rot spread among the English churches 
where such doctrines obtained! Could any other result 
be reasonably expected as the fruits of such a theology? 

It must, however, in justice be said that this was a time 
of general decline in religion among Englishmen, which 
began with the Restoration, and became marked from 
the beginning of the Hanoverian period. Many causes 
combined to bring religion to this low estate. In the 
desire to avoid Romanism on the one hand and Puritan- 
ism on the other, the Established Church had fallen into 
a colorless, passionless, powerless style of teaching. The 
clergy were estranged from the House of Hanover, and 
the whole church system was disorganized. By suc- 
cessive withdrawals of its best men, the Church had been 
seriously weakened, while the Dissenting bodies had not 
been correspondingly strengthened. Deism had made 
great strides among people and clergy, and Christianity 
was but half believed and less than half practised. 

Here, indeed, was the great secret of the religious 
collapse that had overtaken England. There was a seri- 
ous deterioration in the moral fiber of the people, the 
cause of which is not far to seek. This deterioration 
Q 



2^2 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

plainly had its source in that general and widespread 
corruption of the highest orders of society that began 
with the reign of Charles II. and had continued ever 
since. During the reign of the Stuarts the body of the 
poeple continued, as to moral character and religious 
ideas, substantially what they had been. After a genera- 
tion or two, however, the example of the higher classes 
was not without its effect. When king and courtiers 
made a scoff of religion, when they lived in open lewd- 
ness and ostentatious impiety, the ideals of the people 
could not fail to be greatly affected though the change 
might be slow. The corruptions sown during the Stuart 
period were bearing abundant fruit in church and society 
long after the Stuarts had lost the throne of England 
forever. Phillimore, a historian of English jurispru- 
dence, sums up the matter in saying : " The upper classes 
were without refinement; the middle, gross without 
humor; and the lower, brutal without honesty." 

But it was through the clergy that the effects of the 
Restoration chiefly made themselves felt on the religious 
life of the nation. In the Established Church the man- 
ners and morals of the clergy, as depicted in contem- 
porary literature, were frightful. The drunken, lecher- 
ous, swearing, gaming parson is a familiar character in 
the plays and romances of the period, and survives even 
to the beginning of the present century. Preferment in 
Church depended upon subserviency to those who were 
masters in State, and the clergy took their tone from the 
court. Not only was personal piety a bar to advance- 
ment rather than a recommendation, but virtual infidelity 
in the State bred rationalism in theology. The clergy 
became timid, apologetic, latitudinarian in their teaching, 
and the people became like unto them. Religion never 
sank to so low an ebb in England as during the first 
half of the eighteenth century. 



THE SECOND REFORMATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 243 

Lest this should be thought too black a picture, painted 
by an unfriendly hand, let an English churchman be 
heard. Bishop Ryle says : " From the year 1700 till about 
the era of the French Revolution, England seemed bar- 
ren of all good. . . There was darkness in high places 
and darkness in low places; darkness in the court, the 
camp, the Parliament, and the bar; darkness in the 
country and darkness in town; darkness among rich, 
and darkness among poor — a gross, thick, religious and 
moral darkness ; a darkness that might be felt." 

But a man had been raised up for just this emergency, 
and by a long and peculiar experience he had been pre- 
pared to cope with the powers of darkness. John Wes- 
ley was the son of an English clergyman, educated at 
Oxford, in his youth an ardent believer in High Church 
principles and full of self-righteousness. Going on a 
mission to the new colony of Georgia, he fell into com- 
pany with some Moravians, and received his first in- 
struction in the true meaning of the gospel. On his 
return to England, he sought out others of this people; 
and it was in the year 1738, at the meeting of a Mo- 
ravian Society in London, that John Wesley felt, as he 
tells us, for the first time : " I did trust in Christ, Christ 
alone, for salvation ; and an assurance was given me that 
he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me 
from the law of sin and death." Soon England was 
shaken by the preaching of the new birth and immediate 
justification by faith, and the second Reformation had 
begun. Driven from the pulpits of the Established 
Church — of which he was, and remained to the day of 
his death, a presbyter in full standing — Wesley began, 
though with fear and trembling, to preach in the fields. 
In this he had been preceded by George Whitefield, a 
fellow-student at Oxford, and a member also of a small 
religious club that had been nicknamed " Methodists." 



244 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Whitefield was the greater preacher, Wesley the greater 
organizer and leader. Together, and powerfully aided 
by other helpers only less eloquent and less able, they 
accomplished the greatest religious revolution of modern 
times. 

Not only did they call into being societies all over 
the kingdom, which, at John Wesley's death numbered 
one hundred thousand members; but, as has been well 
said, the Methodists themselves were the least result of 
the revival. A great wave of religious zeal swept over 
the entire English nation, and left permanent results 
upon the national character, institutions, laws. Upon the 
Church of England itself the effect was most marked, 
possibly because here reformation was most needed. The 
clergy were roused from their lethargy; the whole spirit 
of the church was transformed and permanently altered 
for the better. Skepticism was checked, and religion 
became once more respectable among the titled and the 
rich. An " Evangelical " party arose, which ruled the 
Church of England for the next fifty years, and included 
among its members some of the most godly ministers 
and laymen that church has ever possessed. A new 
moral enthusiasm was roused in the nation, as was 
manifest in the changed attitude of the people toward 
all policies in which ethical issues were involved. The 
abolition of the slave trade may be directly traced to 
the revival, as well as the new philanthropy that from 
this time forward became a national trait. In short, in 
the throes of this movement, England was born again, 
and the new life on which she then entered has endured 
to the present hour. 

It is superfluous to say that the Baptists of England 
participated in the benefits of this second Reformation. 
With it begins a new era in their history, an era of 
growth, of zeal, of missionary activity, which gave them 



THE SECOND REFORMATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 245 

a leading place among the Nonconformists of England. 
While this is true regarding all the Baptist churches, 
perhaps the most immediate and striking results of the 
Wesleyan movement may be traced in the growth of the 
General Baptists. 

Among the early converts of the Wesleyan revival was 
a youthful Yorkshireman, the son of a miner, himself 
a worker in the mines from his fifth year. Dan Taylor 
was of sturdy frame and great native intelligence, 
though his education was naturally of the slightest. Soon 
after his conversion, he began to visit the sick and lead 
prayer-meetings with the zeal not unusual in new con- 
verts, but with an ability so unusual that his brethren 
encouraged him to attempt preaching. His first sermon 
was preached in a dwelling-house near Halifax, in Sep- 
tember, 1761. The leading Methodists of Yorkshire en- 
couraged his efforts and urged him to visit Mr. Wesley 
and be enrolled in the ranks of the regular Wesleyan 
preachers; but there were things in the discipline and 
doctrine of the societies that he did not approve, and 
about midsummer, 1762, he withdrew finally from all 
connection with the Methodists. 

At this time there were a few Christians in the village 
of Heptonstall, not far from Halifax, who had done the 
same. They invited Taylor to preach to them. For 
some months he preached to them in the open air, under 
a tree. The prospect was discouraging, the country wild, 
and the people rough and unpolished, yet he determined 
to remain and preach the gospel to them. On the ap- 
proach of winter, they obtained a house to meet in, taking 
up part of the chamber floor and converting the rest into 
a gallery. The house was duly registered under the 
Act of Toleration, and during the week Taylor taught 
a school in it, to eke out his support. These people had 
left both the Church of England and the Methodists, 



246 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

but had joined no other body. They began to study the 
New Testament, with a view to determining some plan 
of church order and some principles of doctrine. Taylor 
diligently used such books as he could obtain, and the 
result of his investigations was to convince him that 
believers' baptism is the only thing warranted by the 
Scriptures. There were Particular Baptists about Halifax, 
but they were bitterly hostile to all who held the Arminian 
theology; and since Taylor persisted in holding that 
Jesus Christ had tasted death for every man and made 
propitiation for the sins of the whole world, they would 
not help him to obey Christ — though several expressed 
their firm persuasion that he was a genuine Christian, 
and were even well satisfied of his call to the ministry. 
He learned at length that in Lincolnshire there were 
Baptists of sentiments like his own, and with a friend 
he set out to travel a distance of one hundred and twenty 
miles on foot. They found, however, a congregation of 
General Baptists at Gamston, Nottinghamshire; and 
though they were received rather coolly at first, after a 
conference of three days they were baptized in the river 
near-by, February 16, 1763. 

Returning, Taylor and his people organized a General 
Baptist church, the only one at that time in Yorkshire, 
and in the autumn he was ordained to the ministry, at 
Birchcliff. At first they connected themselves with the 
Lincolnshire churches of like faith, but speedily became 
aware of the great degeneracy that had occurred. Many 
of the General Baptists had come to deny the atonement, 
justification by faith alone, and regeneration by the Holy 
Spirit. As Taylor made the acquaintance of General 
Baptists in the midland counties, he found them more 
evangelical. A preliminary conference was held at Lin- 
coln about Michaelmas, 1769, and a formal organization 
was effected in London, June 7, 1770, of " The Assembly 



THE SECOND REFORMATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 247 

of the Free Grace General Baptists," commonly known 
as the " New Connexion." Two Associations, a North- 
ern arid a Southern, were also formed at once. The 
Northern consisted in 1772 of seven churches and one 
thousand two hundred and twenty-one members, which 
by 1800 had increased to twenty -two churches and two 
thousand six hundred members. The Southern Asso- 
ciation never showed much vitality. In Yorkshire, as we 
have seen, there was but one church at the beginning, 
but at the end of fifteen years there were four. 

The progress of the New Connection was due almost 
wholly to Dan Taylor. He was the life and soul of the 
movement. Everything that he set his hand to pros- 
pered; when he took his hand away things languished. 
His mind was naturally vigorous, and he found means 
to cultivate its powers and make of himself a fairly edu- 
cated man. His body seemed incapable of fatigue and 
his labors were herculean. If anything demanded doing, 
he was ready to do it. Did an Association wish a cir- 
cular letter to the churches, he wrote it; was a minister 
in demand for a sermon, a charge, or any other service, 
from Berwick-on-Tweed to Land's End, Dan Taylor 
was on hand. He led in the establishment of the fund 
for the education of ministers, in 1796, and was principal 
of the academy — or, as we should say nowadays, theo- 
logical seminary — established for the purpose in 1798. 
He edited the " General Baptist Magazine " ; he traveled 
up and down England, traversing, it is said, twenty-five 
thousand miles, mostly on foot. And he preached con- 
stantly; a sermon every night and three on Sunday was 
his ordinary allowance, and on special occasions he 
preached several times a day. Even the labors of John 
Wesley are equaled, if not surpassed, by this record. 

One story has been preserved that well illustrates a 
trait of his character, his indomitable energy. At one 



248 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

time in his life he had some difficulty with his eyes and 
feared he might lose his sight. He was at first appalled 
by the prospect, as anybody would naturally be; then he 
determined that he would learn the whole Bible " by 
heart," so that when his eyesight was gone he might 
still be able to preach the gospel. He began his task, 
and had actually accomplished a good part of it when 
his trouble left him, and he desisted. No wonder that 
such a man was a successful evangelist; such determina- 
tion and pluck will make a man successful in any calling ; 
and qualities of this kind, as well as the anointing of the 
Holy Spirit, are needed, if one is to be a great evangelist. 
God makes no mistakes ; he never selects for a great work 
the lazy, half-hearted, weak-willed man, but one who has 
energy and grit and perseverance, as well as piety. It 
is impossible to bore through granite with a boiled carrot ; 
it requires a steel drill. 

Dan Taylor fell asleep in his seventy-eighth year, and 
the phrase almost literally describes his end, for suddenly, 
without a groan or sigh, he expired while sitting in his 
chair. His work was well done, and English Baptists 
still feel the result of his manly piety and zealous labors. 

The change that gradually came over the Particular 
Baptists is not, to so great an extent, identified with 
the character and labors of a single man. It is still true, 
however, that to the influence of Andrew Fuller such 
change is largely due, especially the modification of the 
Baptist theology, that was an indispensable prerequisite 
to effective preaching of the gospel. Fuller was born in 
Cambridgeshire in 1754, and at the age of fourteen be- 
came deeply convicted of sin. It was long before the 
way of life became clear to him, but at length he reached 
a faith in Christ from which he never wavered. The 
witnessing of a baptismal service in March, 1770 — until 
then he had never seen an immersion — wrought immediate 




Page 



Andrew Fuller 



THE SECOND REFORMATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 249 

conviction in his mind that this was the only form 
of obedience to the command of Christ, and a month 
later he was himself baptized. In the spring of 1775 
he was ordained to the ministry, and in 1782 became 
pastor of the church at Kettering, which he served until 
his death, in 181 5. He was a sound and edifying 
preacher, but not a great orator ; nevertheless, few pulpit 
orators have had so wide a hearing, or so deeply 
influenced their generation. 

Fuller was, first of all, mighty with his pen. He was 
mainly self-educated, and never became a real scholar, 
but he had a robust mind capable of profound thought, 
and he learned to express himself in clear, vigorous 
English. The result was to make him one of the most 
widely read and influential theological writers of Eng- 
land or America. Large editions of his writings were 
sold in both countries, and they bid fair to be still " in 
print " when much-vaunted works of a later day are 
forgotten. Fuller boldly accepted and advocated a doc- 
trine of the atonement that, until his day, had always 
been stigmatized as rank Arminianism, viz., that the 
atonement of Christ, as to its worth and dignity, was 
sufficient for the sins of the whole world, and was not an 
offering for the elect alone, as Calvinists of all grades 
had hitherto maintained. Along with this naturally went 
a sublapsarian interpretation of the " doctrines of grace," 
and this modified Calvinism gradually made its way 
among Baptists until it has become well-nigh the only 
doctrine known among them. 

But Fuller was also great as an organizer and man 
of affairs. He became secretary of the missionary so- 
ciety of the Baptists, and in pursuance of his duties trav- 
eled from one end of England to another many times ; 
five times he traversed Scotland for the same object, 
and once he made a like tour of Ireland. He was a man 



25O A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of splendid physique, tall and strongly built, and eyes 
deep-set under bushy brows lighted up a massive face 
that was a good index of his character. To his sturdy 
mind, enlightened zeal, and indefatigable labors, the Bap- 
tist cause in England, and in America as well, owes a 
debt that can hardly be acknowledged in words too 
emphatic. 

But the most important of those results that may be 
directly or indirectly traced to the Wesleyan revival, re- 
mains to be described. The man destined to do more 
than any other toward the regeneration of English Bap- 
tists, and to be an inspiration to all other Christians, 
was some years younger than Andrew Fuller. This was 
William Carey. He was born in 1761, not of Baptist 
parentage; on the contrary, his father was an old-school 
Churchman, and bred his son in holy horror of all " Dis- 
senters. " But Carey heard the gospel preached, he was 
convicted of sin, and converted, and like most young 
converts, took to reading his Bible with new zest. The 
New Testament speaks for itself to any one who will 
honestly read it to learn what it teaches, and Carey soon 
learned what a Christian church ought to be and what 
a converted man ought to do. He not only saw his duty, 
but did it, though it required him to join himself to cer- 
tain of the despised Dissenters. He was baptized on 
profession of faith, in the river Neu, on October 5, 1783, 
by Dr. John Ryland. Little did Doctor Ryland know 
that he was performing the most important act of his life, 
and as little did he guess that this humble youth was to 
become a great man. " This day baptized a poor jour- 
neyman shoemaker " is the curt entry in the good doctor's 
diary. 

It was evident, however, from the beginning that Carey 
was a young man of promise. He became a member of 
the Baptist church at Olney, of which Rev. John SutclifTe 



THE SECOND REFORMATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 25 1 

was pastor. He showed gifts in exhortation that war- 
ranted his pastor and friends in urging him to preach, 
and he was not long in making his fitness for the min- 
istry evident. In 1787 he was called to the pastorate of 
a little Baptist church at Moulton, and ordained. He 
already had a wife and two children, and the Moulton 
church was so poor that he could be paid only seventy- 
five dollars a year. He was obliged, therefore, during 
the week to work as a cobbler for the support of his 
family. At the same time he had a thirst for learning, 
and as he worked his custom was to keep by him a book 
for study. In this way he is said in seven years to have 
learned to read five languages, including Greek and He- 
brew. If young men and women whose educational ad- 
vantages have been limited would but take a tithe of the 
pains to utilize their odd minutes that Carey took, they 
might do anything they chose. It is true Carey had a 
remarkable gift for acquiring languages, but even more 
remarkable than this was his determination to learn, in 
spite of difficulties. It is that determination which is 
lacking in most, more than ability to learn. 

Carey not only studied text-books, but read all good 
books that he could borrow, and among these was a copy 
of Captain Cook's voyages. He also kept a school after 
a time, and of course had to teach the children geog- 
raphy. In these ways his mind was turned toward the 
destitute condition of the heathen and their need of the 
gospel. But when he began to talk to others about it, 
he met with little encouragement, and it is said that once 
when he began in a Baptist gathering to speak of a mission 
to the heathen, Doctor Ryland exclaimed : " Sit down, 
young man; when the Lord gets ready to convert the 
heathen he will do it without your help or mine ! " It 
is not recorded whether Carey sat down or not, but he 
certainly did not give up advocating missions to the 



252 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

heathen. Apart from the hyper-Calvinism disclosed by 
Doctor Ryland's remark, it is not wonderful that Carey 
received so little encouragement at first. English Bap- 
tists were poor, and so great an enterprise might well 
have seemed to them beset with unsurmountable diffi- 
culties. But Carey wisely declined to consider the matter 
of possibilities; he looked only at the question of duty. 
The Duke of Wellington replied to a young clergyman 
who asked if it were not useless to preach the gospel to 
the Hindus : " With that you have nothing to do. Look 
to your marching orders, ' Go, preach the gospel to every 
creature.' " The soldier was right and the preacher 
stood justly rebuked. 

With difficulty Carey got together money to print and 
circulate a tract called " An Enquiry into the Obliga- 
tions of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of 
the Heathens." Not long after this came from the press 
his great opportunity arrived — he was appointed to 
preach the sermon at the meeting of his Association at 
Nottingham, May 30, 1792. He chose as his text Isaiah 
44 : 2, 3, and announced as the " heads " of his dis- 
course : " Expect great things from God ; attempt great 
things for God." It was one of the days on which the 
fate of denominations and even of nations turns. It roused 
those who listened to a new idea of their responsibility 
for the fulfilment of Christ's commission. Even then, 
nothing might have come of it but for an impassioned 
personal appeal of Carey's to Andrew Fuller, not to let 
the meeting break up without doing something. A reso- 
lution was passed, through Fuller's influence, that a plan 
be prepared for establishing a missionary society, to be 
presented at the next ministers' meeting. 

That meeting was held in Andrew Fuller's study, at Ket- 
tering, October 2, and then and there " The English Bap- 
tist Missionary Society " was organized. Its constituent 



> ffi 



w X 

> o 



d 




THE SECOND REFORMATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 253 

members were twelve, and out of their poverty they 
contributed to its treasury the sum of thirteen pounds 
two shillings and six pence. What a sum with which 
to begin the evangelization of the world! The history 
of this society is an instructive commentary on the Scrip- 
ture, " For who hath despised the day of small things." 
The London churches, the richer churches among Bap- 
tists, stood aloof from this movement. It was the poorer 
country churches that finally raised enough money to 
send out in June, 1793, Carey and a Baptist surgeon 
named Thomas, who had previously been in India and, 
as he had opportunity, had preached the gospel as a 
layman and a physician. 

The British East India Company was bitterly opposed 
to the preaching of the gospel in India, fearing that the 
natives might be provoked to rise against the govern- 
ment. It is not exaggerating to say that Christianity 
has done more than any other thing, more than strong 
battalions, to maintain England's rule in India. But the 
directors could not foresee this. One said he would see 
a band of devils let loose in India rather than a band 
of missionaries. Englishmen who survived the Sepoy 
rebellion were rather less anxious to see devils let loose 
in India, and much more favorably disposed toward mis- 
sionaries. For a time Carey, and the next missionaries 
sent — Marshman and Ward — established themselves at 
Serampore, a Danish settlement not far from Calcutta. 
Here a missionary press was set up, and Doctor Carey 
did the great work of his life in translating and printing 
the Scriptures in the various Indian languages. He had, 
as we have seen, a special aptitude for the acquisition 
of languages. He had shown this before leaving Eng- 
land, but he demonstrated it more clearly after he reached 
India. The rapidity and ease with which he acquired 
the various languages spoken there have never been sur- 



254 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

passed, and he became in a short time one of the world's 
greatest Oriental scholars. 

To every man his gifts. Others could preach the gos- 
pel to the heathen as well as Carey, or better, for he 
never seems to have developed special power as a 
preacher. But no one could equal him as scholar, 
translator, writer. He wisely spent his time and strength 
in translating the Scriptures and other Christian litera- 
ture into the Indian languages and dialects, in making 
grammars, and the like. Thus he not only did a great 
work for his own generation, but one that will last for 
all time, or so long as these languages shall be spoken. 
Before his death, there had been issued under his super- 
vision, he himself doing a large part of the work, versions 
of the Scriptures in forty different languages or dia- 
lects, spoken by a third of the people on the globe; and 
of these Scriptures two hundred and twelve thousand 
copies had been issued. 

In his later years, men like Sydney Smith ceased to 
sneer at the " consecrated cobbler," and Carey was hon- 
orded as a man of his learning, piety, and exalted charac- 
ter deserved. In 1801 he was made professor of Bengali in 
Lord Wellesley's new College of Fort William, at Cal- 
cutta; and titles and honors were showered upon him 
toward the close of his life. The learned societies of 
Europe recognized him as one of the greatest scholars 
of his age. But he was to the last a humble missionary 
of the religion of Christ. He is justly regarded as the 
father of modern missions, for though Baptists were not 
the first in modern times to engage in this work, it was 
Carey and his work that drew the attention of all Chris- 
tians to it, that quickened the Christian conscience, and 
that gave the missionary cause a great forward impulse 
which it has never since lost. 

From the first the mission thus established prospered, 



THE SECOND REFORMATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 255 

in spite of the obstacles thrown in its way by British of- 
ficials and the fire of ridicule kept up in the rear by men 
who ought to have been in better business. The first 
secretary of this body was Andrew Fuller, to whose in- 
defatigable labors was due much of its growth in financial 
strength and missionary zeal. The society has several 
times extended its operations, and in addition various 
enterprises have been conducted by churches and indi- 
viduals in Africa and Italy. In this work, and in many 
other forms of service, the General and Particular 
Baptists united, prior to their formal union. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

OF the English Baptist churches now in existence, 
but one hundred and twenty-three were established 
before the Act of Toleration, and during the next half- 
century only sixty-eight more were added to the number. 
From 1750 onward, as the effects of the Wesleyan move- 
ment began to be felt, the growth was more rapid, and 
in the second half of the eighteenth century one hundred 
and sixty-five Baptist churches were constituted, of which 
more than one hundred belong to the last two decades. 
From this time, seven decades of the nineteenth century 
show a rapid and ever-increasing rate of progress. The 
first half of the century saw an addition of seven hundred 
churches; the second half exceeds even this growth, 
showing a total number of nine hundred and sixty-one 
churches established. The last two decades are less re- 
markable for increase in the number of churches, but 
on the other hand, they show a gratifying advance in 
the strength and efficiency of the churches already 
founded. 

It does not seem fanciful to trace a close connection 
between this growth of the churches and the development 
of organization that followed the Carey movement. The 
first step was taken by the formation of the Baptist 
Home Mission Society in 1779, followed by the Baptist 
Union in 1832. Both societies did much to unite the 
churches in evangelistic efforts, but the older society was 
more distinctively missionary in its aims and methods. 
In 1865 the society was united with the Irish Missionary 
256 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 257 

Society (formed in 1814) to form the British and Irish 
Baptist Home Mission, and now for some years this has 
been merged in the Baptist Union for Great Britain and 
Ireland, which became an incorporated body in 1890. 
The General Baptists had established a missionary so- 
ciety in 1 816, and other societies of various kinds at 
other times ; but in 1891, the General Baptists united with 
the Particular Baptists, and now all the various mission- 
ary and benevolent societies of both bodies are admin- 
istered as departments of the Baptist Union. The dis- 
tinctions of doctrine anciently maintained by these two 
wings of the denomination long since practically dis- 
appeared, and it was proper that distinctions in 
administration should no longer be maintained. 

The missionary movement begun by Carey and his 
coadjutors had a stimulating effect by no means confined 
to his own denomination. Missionary societies were 
speedily formed by other bodies of Christians, and even 
the Church of England was stirred to do something for 
the evangelizing of heathen lands. And this new 
activity was not limited to strictly missionary effort. 
The great work of Carey, as we have seen, was the 
translation of the Scriptures into the Eastern tongues, 
and a multitude of others followed in his footsteps. In 
1804 a large number of evangelical Christians, of some 
ten or more different denominations, formed the British 
and Foreign Bible Society, for the circulation of the 
Scriptures in all lands, without note or comment. It was 
due to the activity of Rev. Joseph Hughes, a Baptist min- 
ister of Battersea, that this society was formed, and he 
was its first secretary. Baptists generally were active 
in the support of the society, and for a generation grants 
were freely made from its treasury to aid the printing 
of Carey's translations. This was done with full knowl- 
edge of the fact that Carey and others translated all 



258 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

words, including baptizo and its cognates— official corre- 
spondence left no question possible regarding this point. 
In 1835 Messrs. Yates & Pearce had ready for publi- 
cation a revised copy of Carey's Bengali Bible, and ap- 
plied to the British and Foreign Bible Society for aid 
in printing it. This application was refused, unless they 
would guarantee that " the Greek terms relating to Bap- 
tism be rendered, either according to the principle 
adopted by the translators of the authorized English 
version, by a word derived from the original, or by such 
terms as may be considered unobjectionable by other de- 
nominations composing the Bible Society." The demand 
was, in plain English, either that the Baptist missionaries 
should not translate baptizo and its cognates at all, or that 
they should make a wrong translation ! 

More than six hundred Baptist ministers presented to 
the society, in 1837, a protest against its unjust, un- 
catholic, and inconsistent action; and in January, 1840, 
a final remonstrance was addressed to the society by the 
Baptist Union. Nothing, of course, came of these pro- 
tests, and therefore on March 24, 1840, the Baptists of 
England formed the Bible Translation Society, in order 
to " encourage the production and circulation of com- 
plete translations of the holy Scriptures, competently au- 
thenticated for fidelity, it being always understood that 
the words relating to the ordinance of baptism shall be 
translated by terms signifying immersion." This society 
is still in existence, and enjoys the distinction of having 
printed and distributed over six million copies of the 
Scriptures, at a cost of one million five hundred thousand 
dollars. 

Two of the greatest preachers of the nineteenth cen- 
tury came from the ranks of the English Baptists. The 
first, Robert Hall, belongs in part to the preceding 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 259 

century. He was born near Leicester, in 1764, the young- 
est child of a family of fourteen, weak in body, and pre- 
cocious in mind. He was an accomplished theologian at 
the tender age of nine, having then mastered (among 
other works) "Edwards on the Will" and Butler's 
" Analogy." Notwithstanding such precocity, he did not 
prove to be a fool, but was one of the few " remarkable 
children " who turn out really remarkable men. In his 
fifteenth year he began his series of studies for the min- 
istry at Bristol College, where his progress in learning 
was rapid; but as a preacher he seemed likely to be a 
failure. On his first public trial he repeatedly broke 
down, through an excessive sensibility that made public 
speech an agony to him, almost an impossibility. He 
mastered this weakness, however, and thenceforth stead- 
ily increased in power as an orator. Four years spent at 
King's College, Aberdeen, where he was first in all his 
classes, brought him to his majority. His pastorates 
were at Cambridge, Leicester, and Bristol, and in each 
city his ministry was greatly successful. Many of his 
sermons were printed and had a wide circulation. No 
preacher of his time was more highly esteemed by the 
leaders of thought in Great Britain. Hall was master 
of an ornate and stately kind of eloquence long extinct 
in the pulpit, much esteemed in its day and perhaps too 
little esteemed now. To the present generation his sen- 
tences seem cumbrous, his style is pronounced affected 
and stilted, his tropes frigid. Indeed, the reader of to- 
day is at a loss to understand how his sermons could 
ever have won such encomiums as they received. Yet 
at his death, in 1831, it was universally agreed that one 
of the greatest lights of the pulpit had been extinguished. 
The other preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, was 
a man of quite different mold. His father and grand- 
father had been Congregationalist preachers, and from 



200 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

his birth, in 1834, he was predestined to the same career. 
This did not become clear to him, however, until his 
conversion in his seventeenth year. He felt it his duty 
to unite with a Baptist church, and soon after his bap- 
tism began to preach. He had received a fair educa- 
tion, about equal to that given by a good American 
academy, and was already a teacher in a private school. 
His success as a preacher led him to forego any further 
training, and from his eighteenth year until his death, in 
1892, he was constantly engaged in what was to him the 
most delightful and the most honorable of all callings. 
It was a dangerous experiment; only one man of a 
thousand could have escaped disaster, but Spurgeon was 
that man. In the autumn of 1853 ne was called to the 
Southwark Baptist Church, where his predecessors had 
been such men as Keach, Gill, and Rippon, and there he 
spent the rest of his life. 

The success of the young preacher was immediate and 
wonderful. During the rest of his life Spurgeon had 
continuously the largest congregations of any preacher 
in the world, and soon his sermons were printed and 
scattered broadcast, until through the press he spoke 
weekly to more than half a million people. But he was 
more than a voice crying in the wilderness ; he bears the 
supreme test of greatness that can be applied to a 
preacher — he not only gained a great reputation for elo- 
quence, but proved himself a builder. His church grew 
to more than five thousand members — the largest Baptist 
church in the world. He founded the Pastors' College 
for the education of ministers, and hundreds of gradu- 
ates attest by godly living and fruitful ministry the worth 
of what he thus did. He established the Stockwell Or- 
phanage, in which more than five hundred children have 
been maintained and educated annually for nearly thirty 
years. A Colportage Association, a Book Fund, and a 




JLs.^^ x^e 



Page 260 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 26l 

successful religious magazine were among his other prac- 
tical achievements. And when he was called to his re- 
ward, all these institutions went on, with little impair- 
ment of their efficiency ; what he had built was so solidly 
built that the shock of his death could do it no serious 
harm. 

During the latter part of Spurgeon's life there was, as 
he believed, a great declension in theology among the 
English Baptists. By diligent study through life he had 
become, if not exactly a great theologian, a well-read, 
well-trained minister, especially versed in the Scriptures 
and the writings of the great Puritan divines. From first 
to last he was the unfaltering advocate of the pure gos- 
pel of Christ. A moderate Calvinist as to theology, he 
preached an atonement for the whole world and salva- 
tion through Christ's blood to every one who will believe. 
He stood like a rock against the advancing tide of lax 
teaching and lax practice, and at least retarded, if he 
did not check, the movement that he described as " the 
down grade." This led him to sharp controversy with 
many of his brethren, and finally induced him to 
withdraw from the Baptist Union. 

Besides Hall and Spurgeon, the Baptist pulpit of Eng- 
land produced other great preachers during the last 
century, two of whom at least are still living — Alexander 
McLaren, the eloquent Manchester divine (born at Glas- 
gow, 1825), and John Clifford (born 1836), everywhere 
known as one of the most scholarly, able, and polished 
preachers of his time. Nor have there been lacking lay- 
men of equal eminence — to mention three examples 
only — Major-General Havelock, the hero of the Indian 
Mutiny (1795-1857); Thomas Spencer Baynes, ll. d. 
(1823-1887), long professor of logic and metaphysics at 
the University of St. Andrews, and a writer of world- 
wide repute; and Sir Robert Lush (1807-1881), one of 



262 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the foremost men at the bar, and Lord-Justice of the 
High Court of Appeals. It would be easy, but also un- 
profitable, to make a long catalogue of distinguished 
names, only less worthy of mentioning than these. 
Enough has been said, however, to show that Baptists 
have been by no means an obscure and feeble folk in 
England for the last hundred years or more. 

The English Baptists began the century just closing 
not differing greatly in numbers from their brethren in 
America; but their rate of increase has been much 
smaller. Why so marked a difference of growth ? Amer- 
ican Baptists are accustomed to answer, To the difference 
in the effective maintenance of Baptist principles. The 
Baptists of America have been consistent and united, 
while their English brethren have been divided and in- 
consistent. The answer may be far from satisfactory, 
it may ignore many important elements of the problem, 
and yet it may be at least a partial explanation of the 
unquestionable fact. 

As we have already seen, from the beginning there 
were so-called Baptist churches of mixed membership — 
that is to say, not exclusively Baptist, but composed in 
part of Pedobaptists. This is due to the circumstances 
of their origin. In nearly every case which is matter 
of record, the early Baptist churches of the seventeenth 
century were formed from previously existing Separatist 
churches of the Congregational order. The separations 
between those who had come to hold to believers' baptism 
only and those who still held to Pedobaptism were gen- 
erally peaceful, frequently friendly. In some cases there 
was no formal separation, the majority holding to be- 
lievers' baptism and tolerating Pedobaptism in the 
minority. In other cases a church was organized on the 
principle of permitting full liberty in the matter of bap- 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 263 

tism, both as to subjects and form. That churches so 
composed should remain in full fellowship with Pedo- 
baptist churches is nothing surprising; why should they 
not commune with Pedobaptist churches, since they ad- 
mitted Pedobaptists to membership in their own churches, 
which, of course, carried with it the privilege of com- 
munion ? To admit some Pedobaptists to the Lord's table 
and exclude others would have been inconsistency too 
ridiculous. 

From the first, therefore, there was a division of 
sentiment and practice. Baptists like William Kiffen, 
John Spilsbury, and Hanserd Knollys, stood for the con- 
sistent Baptist position that the church should be com- 
posed of baptized believers only, and that only such are 
warranted or invited by New Testament precept and ex- 
ample in coming to the table of the Lord. On the other 
hand, Baptists like Henry Jessey, John Tombes, and John 
Bunyan, favored the laxer practice of communing with 
all Christians, while Jessey and Bunyan at least were pas- 
tors of churches of mixed membership. There was hot 
debate over this question of open communion, as any one 
may see who will take the trouble to examine a copy of 
Bunyan's " Complete Works," of which there are many 
editions. Words decidedly warm passed between Bunyan 
and Kiffen, and of course neither party was convinced 
by the arguments of the other. Mixed churches and 
open communion remained the practice of a considerable 
part of the English Baptists, and had the advocacy of 
some of the ablest men in the denomination. 

The natural result, one that might have been predicted 
from well-known principles of human nature, was that 
the growth of English Baptists was relatively slow, even 
in times when their piety and zeal were high. Baptist 
growth has always been in proportion to the stanchness 
with which Baptist principles have been upheld and prac- 



264 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

tised. So it ever has been with all religious bodies. 
Nothing is gained by smoothing off the edges of truth 
and toning down its colors, so that its contrast with error 
may be as slight as possible. On the contrary, let the 
edges remain a bit rough, let the colors be heightened, 
so that the world cannot possibly mistake the one for 
the other, and the prospect of the truth gaining accept- 
ance, is greatly increased. The history of every relig- 
ious denomination teaches the same lesson : progress 
depends on loyalty to truth. Compromise always means 
decay. 

The present century has witnessed the most rapid 
change among the Baptists of England with regard to 
the communion. The most powerful factor in producing 
this twofold defection was Robert Hall. Starting from 
premises that Socinus would have heartily approved, he 
reached the conclusion that the neglect of baptism is to 
be tolerated by the churches as an exercise of Christian 
liberty (a Christian at liberty to disobey Christ !), and that 
sincerity rather than outward obedience is the test that 
the " genius of Christianity " proposes. Under the in- 
fluence of such teachings, large numbers of Baptist 
churches became " open." This change has been followed 
by its logical result — a result inevitable wherever " open " 
communion is adopted and given full opportunity to work 
itself out — the formation of churches of mixed member- 
ship. In many of these, the trust-deeds distinctly specify 
that Baptists and Pedobaptists shall have equal rights, 
and it is not uncommon for such a church to have a 
Pedobaptist pastor. In many other so-called Baptist 
churches of England the ordinance of baptism is seldom 
or never administered; Pedobaptists are received to 
membership on equal terms with the baptized; they are 
chosen to office, and even to the pastorate. In short, so 
effectually is the church disguised as frequently to be 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 265 

reckoned by both Baptists and Independents in their 
statistics. 1 

Spurgeon's attitude towards these questions has very 
often been misunderstood. He did not absolutely agree 
with the practice of the American Baptists regarding the 
communion, but he did very nearly, and it is an abuse 
of terms to call him an " open communionist." He did 
not advocate or practise the promiscuous invitation of 
all Christians to the table of the Lord. The communion 
service was held on Sunday afternoon in the Tabernacle, 
and admission was by ticket only. Members of the 
church, of course, were furnished with tickets. Any per- 
son not a member, desiring to attend and partake of the 
Supper, must satisfy the pastor or deacons that he was 
a member in good standing of an evangelical church, 
when he would receive a ticket. At the end of three 
months he would be quietly told that he had had an op- 
portunity to become acquainted with the church, and 
they would be glad to have him present himself as a 
candidate for membership; otherwise he would do well 
to go elsewhere, where he could conscientiously unite. 
This is a more restricted communion than is practised 
by most Baptist churches in America, for in large num- 
bers of our churches Pedobaptists occasionally partake 
of the communion without any such careful safeguards. 
Spurgeon did not believe in mixed membership; he ab- 
horred it. No one could be a member of the Metropolitan 
Tabernacle church unless he was a baptized believer — 
credibly a believer, and certainly baptized. From our 
point of view, it was very unfortunate that he gave the 
approval of his example to even occasional communion 
with those whom he believed unbaptized. His practice 

1 Thirty-four such churches are set down among the Baptist churches of 
England in the " Baptist Handbook," and of these six had Congregational 
pastors in 1901. 



266 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

was to this extent illogical and inconsistent, and some- 
what weakened the general healthfulness of his influence. 
He frankly admitted this in private conversations, on 
many occasions, and explicitly said that were he a pas- 
tor in America he should conform to the practice of 
American Baptists. Compared, however, with the " open 
communion " Baptists of England, he was strongly 
orthodox and rigidly conservative. 

Among the ministers who established the first Baptist 
churches in England was a large proportion of men 
who had been educated at Oxford and Cambridge for- 
the Church of England, but there were also from the first 
men whose early education had been very slight. Among 
these latter, such preachers as Kiffen and Bunyan were 
certainly not a whit inferior to the better-trained men. 
Nevertheless, it was not long before the Baptist churches 
felt the importance of establishing schools for the edu- 
cation of their ministry. These are always called " col- 
leges " in England, but differ from the colleges of Amer- 
ica in being not schools of arts, but schools of theology. 
The oldest of these schools now surviving is Bristol 
College, founded in 1770 by the Northern Baptist Edu- 
cation Society. There are usually twenty-five students 
in attendance. They have opportunity to pursue studies 
in arts in Bristol University College, and some of the 
students take their degrees at London University. 
Another college was instituted in 1797 in London, and 
has had numerous habitations since then, but is now lo- 
cated at Midland, Nottingham. Thirteen students is a 
good attendance for this institution. Rawdon College, 
near Leeds, in Yorkshire, was founded by the Northern 
Baptist Education Society, in 1804, and has been in its 
present home since 1859. The best known of these 
colleges is perhaps that established in 18 10 at Stepney, but 




Page 266 



Charles Haddon Spurgeon 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 26j 

removed in 1856 and since then known as the Regents' 
Park College. Dr. Joseph Angus was for many years 
its honored head. The two last-named schools have an 
annual attendance of from twenty-five to thirty, and from 
Regents' Park some five hundred ministers in all have 
gone forth. The Pastors' College, founded by Mr. Spur- 
geon, in 1856, has about sixty students. The strict-com- 
munion churches established a college, now located at 
Manchester, in 1866, which has an attendance rarely or 
never exceeding twenty students. 

The other parts of the United Kingdom are not with- 
out similar provision. The Welsh Baptists at present 
have two theological schools: Cardiff College, founded 
in 1897, and formerly located at Pontypool; and Bangor 
College, instituted at Llangollen, in 1862. An annual at- 
tendance of about twenty students is reported from both 
colleges. A single theological college is maintained by 
Baptists at Glasgow. It furnishes strictly theological 
education to students who have taken the arts course in 
a Scottish University, leading to the degree of m. a. 
A college at Dublin, with six students, is also reported 
by the Baptists of Ireland. 

Besides the General and Particular Baptists, there have 
been and still are several organizations in England, hold- 
ing Baptist principles in general, but adding to them 
some distinguishing peculiarity of faith or practice. 

The Six-principle Baptists were so called from the 
stress they laid on the " six principles " enumerated in 
Heb. 6 : 1, 2: Repentance, faith, baptism, laying on of 
hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal life. Of 
these, the fourth is the only one really peculiar to this 
body — the laying of hands on all after baptism, as a token 
of a special impartation of the Spirit. In March, 1690, 
the churches holding these views formed an Association. 



268 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

This continued with varying fortunes for some years; 
at its strongest, numbering but eleven churches in Eng- 
land, though there were others in Wales when the Cal- 
vinistic Baptists withdrew, and the rest of the churches 
were gradually absorbed into the General body. 

The Seventh-day Baptists (so called from their ob- 
servance of the seventh day of the week for rest and 
worship, instead of the first) were founded in 1676 by 
the Rev. Francis Bampfield, a graduate of Oxford, and 
at one time prebend of Exeter Cathedral. This has al- 
ways been a small body, and at the present time but one 
church survives, the Mill Yard, in Whitechapel, London. 
This church was, a few years ago, reduced to a member- 
ship of about half a dozen, and could secure no pastor 
of its own faith in England. The property being very 
valuable, special efforts were made in behalf of the 
church, a pastor was sent to them from America, and 
they became more prosperous than for many years before. 



T 



CHAPTER XVIII 

BAPTISTS IN THE GREATER BRITAIN 

'HERE are traditions among the Welsh Baptists of 
J. an ancient origin, and some of their historians have 
not hesitated to claim for them an antiquity reaching 
back to the days of the apostles. When such claims are 
submitted to the ordinary tests of historic criticism, how- 
ever, they vanish into thin air. Baptist history in Wales, 
as distinguished from tradition, begins with the period 
of the Commonwealth. The most moderate and judicious 
of the Welsh Baptist writers, Rev. Joshua Thomas, says 
that the oldest church in the principality is one formed 
at or near Swansea, in Glammorganshire, in 1649. 1 But 
one church now in existence, the Wrexham, in Denbigh- 
shire, claims an earlier date, 1630; and as a few years 
ago it was content with the year 1635 as the true date 
of its origin, it is probable that neither is matter of record. 
The honor of organizing this first Baptist church in 
Wales belongs to John Myles. He was born about 162 1, 
and matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1636. 
Whether he ever took orders in the Church of England 
is not positively known, but it is probable that he did. 
At any rate, he began to preach the gospel about 1645, 
and by 1649 was so highly esteemed as to be named one 
of the Triers for Wales during the Protectorate. In that 
year, a few baptized believers were gathered, and they 
continued to increase until the Restoration, when Myles 

1 There is a tradition of an earlier church of Welsh Baptists at Olchon, 
in Herefordshire (1633), but no record survives to prove that such a church 
ever existed 

269 



27O A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

and most of the church emigrated to the colony of 
Massachusetts. 

The man to whom the Baptist cause in Wales owes 
most in its early years is Vavasor Powell. He was born 
in 1677, and was descended from a Radnorshire family 
of great antiquity and distinction. It is not known where 
he received his education, but it is certain that he be- 
came a scholar of notable attainments and that he early 
obtained preferment in the Established Church. He was 
led to entertain Puritan sentiments by intercourse with 
some of that persuasion, and by the reading of their 
literature, and in 1642 came to London and joined the 
Parliamentary party. He was for a time settled at Dart- 
mouth, in Kent, where his ministry was very fruitful, 
but calls from his native Wales led him to return thither, 
which he did in 1646, bearing with him the highest 
testimonials as to his piety and gifts, signed by Charles 
Herte, prolocutor, and seventeen other divines of the 
Westminster Assembly. 

Precisely when Powell became a Baptist is not known, 
but it must have been before 1655, for in that year Thur- 
loe speaks of him as " lately rebaptized." x It is prob- 
able that most or all of the churches he established were 
of mixed membership. He favored the practice of 
open communion also. From these lax practices the 
Welsh Baptists were soon emancipated, and became 
what they still are, notable for the consistency and zeal 
with which they advocate and maintain the distinctive 
principles of their denomination. The zeal and eloquence 
of Powell exceeded his consistency ; he was a most la- 
borious and successful evangelist throughout the princi- 
pality, and by the Restoration he had established some 
twenty churches, of which some had from two hundred 
to five hundred members. He died in 1670. He has been 

1 " State Papers," IV., 373- 



BAPTISTS IN THE GREATER BRITAIN 27 1 

called the Whitefield of Wales, and his abundant and 
fruitful labors seem well to merit such a title. 

But eight of the existing churches of Wales were 
founded in the seventeenth century, and before the Act 
of Toleration only thirty-one were added to the number. 
From the passage of that Act, however, the growth of 
Baptists in the principality has been rapid, especially 
since 1810. The formation of Associations began in 
1799, and the Baptist Union of Wales was organized in 
1867. 

More potent than the influence of organization in 
the promotion of this growth has been a succession 
of godly and eloquent Baptist preachers. One of the 
most celebrated of these was Christmas Evans, so named 
because he was born on the 25th of December, 1766. In 
spite of poverty and many difficulties, he obtained a 
good elementary education, and shortly after his conver- 
sion and baptism was ordained to the ministry at the 
age of twenty-two. We may judge of the state of affairs 
in Wales at the time, when we are told that after he had 
been nearly ten years in the ministry and was highly 
esteemed, he was paid by two churches that he served, 
the salary of seventeen pounds a year ! Nevertheless, he 
continued to labor, not only as pastor of churches, but 
as evangelist in general to Wales, until he rested from 
his labors in 1838. In a ministry of half a century he 
had preached all over his native country, with great 
power, and with equal eloquence and originality. 

Through the efforts of such men, the Baptist cause 
has made rapid progress in Wales throughout the nine- 
teenth century, which saw at its close eight hundred and 
thirty-five churches and a membership of one hundred 
and six thousand five hundred and sixty-six (including 
Monmouthshire). Though for a time Arminian doctrines 
threatened to make serious inroads, the Welsh Baptists 



2J2 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

have as a whole remained ardent Calvinists down to the 
present time. Of their churches two hundred and fifty- 
nine maintain services in the English language, and of 
these quite a proportion — some say nearly half — have 
adopted the open communion practices of their neighbors 
in England. This is especially true of churches in the 
large towns. The churches that adhere to their native 
language also adhere to the well-established principles 
and practices of the faith. 

The Baptist churches of Scotland do not pretend to 
any great antiquity. The oldest church now existing 
was founded in Keiss, in Caithnesshire, in 1750. It was 
formed upon the estate of Sir William Sinclair, who was 
immersed in England, and became a preacher of the 
truth on his return. The next oldest churches are in 
Edinburgh. The Bristo-place church was constituted in 
1765, by Rev. Robert Carmichael, originally of the Church 
of Scotland, then a Glasite and later an Independent 
preacher, who finally rejected the doctrine and practice 
of infant baptism, and going to London for the purpose, 
was baptized by Doctor Gill. The other church owes 
its origin to Archibald McLean, who also began his 
career in the Scotch church and then became a Glasite, 
having been at one time a member of Mr. Carmichael's 
church. Not long after his former pastor, he also became 
a convert to Baptist views, and sought baptism on per- 
sonal profession of faith. Besides these churches, one in 
Glasgow claims the date of 1768 for its foundation, and 
two in Paisley are said to have been organized in 1795. 
There are no other Baptist churches in Scotland formed 
earlier than 1803. 

Archibald McLean almost deserves to be called the 
founder of the Scotch Baptist churches. He was born 
in 1733, received the rudiments of a classical education, 



BAPTISTS IN THE GREATER BRITAIN 273 

from which he afterwards advanced by his own exertions 
to considerable learning, and became a printer at Glas- 
gow. He had in early life been much influenced by the 
preaching of Whitefield, and was finally constrained him- 
self to become a preacher. He was even more influential 
by pen than by voice, and his collected writings in six 
volumes are still a monument to his industry and solidity 
of mind. His membership for a time in a Glasite or 
Sandemanian church had important consequences. It 
was the special endeavor of that peculiar sect to re- 
turn as far as possible to apostolic simplicity, and to 
make the churches of to-day an exact reproduction of 
those of the New Testament. From many of his Sande- 
manian notions McLean never freed himself, and the 
Baptist churches of Scotland have perpetuated not a few 
of these notions, such as insisting on having a plurality 
of elders in every church, on the weekly celebration of 
the Lord's Supper, and the like. Later investigations of 
the New Testament period have disclosed the fact, ap- 
parently not suspected by McLean and men of his time, 
that no single form of organization was common to all 
the churches of that period, and that it is unsafe to 
assert a practice found in a single church to be nec- 
essarily the norm for all other churches through all time. 
Next to McLean, possibly the Baptists of Scotland 
owe most to the brothers Haldane, Robert (1764- 1842) 
and James Alexander (1768-1851). Both were educated 
for the navy and served for some years with distinction. 
Robert inherited a large fortune and retired to his es- 
tate at Airthrey, where he became much interested in 
religion, and finally sold his estate, that he might have 
means to carry out his projects. James likewise be- 
came interested in religion, and retired from service to 
become a preacher. In 1799 he was ordained pastor 
of an Independent church in Edinburgh, for which 
s 



274 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

his brother built him in 1801 a fine edifice, known as 
the Tabernacle. Other congregations were established 
in Glasgow, Dundee, and other cities. 

The Haldanes had been bred in the Church of Scotland, 
but these churches were Independent or Congregational, 
and this movement was watched with great interest by 
the English Independents. There was much dissatisfac- 
tion at this time with the State church system in Scot- 
land, and the prospects of Congregationalism seemed 
bright. In 1808, however, both brothers became con- 
vinced that infant baptism is not scriptural, and resolved 
to teach and maintain believers' baptism. This was the 
signal for the temporary disruption of their movement, 
but James continued his work in Edinburgh and evangel- 
istic tours throughout the kingdom, while his brother's 
purse 2 was at his service always. For fifty years this 
eloquent preacher held his own with the great pulpit 
lights of Edinburgh, and during his time of service 
thirty-eight Baptist churches were founded — about one- 
third of the total number in Scotland at the present time. 
The formation of the Baptist Home Mission Society for 
Scotland in 1816 must be credited with a part of this 
growth, no doubt, though its work has been chiefly in 
the highlands and among the islands. In 1856 the Scot- 
tish churches united in the Baptist Association of Scot- 
land, which was dissolved in 1869, when the Baptist 
Union of Scotland took its place. 

There were, at the beginning of this century, one hun- 
dred and twenty-two Baptist churches in Scotland, having 
sixteen thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine members. 

We can fix the beginning of Baptist churches in Ire- 
land within a few years. The oldest church there was 

1 Within fifteen years he is known to have given away $350,000; and it 
is said that during his life he educated 349 ministers, at a cost of $100,000. 



BAPTISTS IN THE GREATER BRITAIN 275 

formed in Dublin by Thomas Patience, assistant pastor 
to KifTen in London. It claims the date of 1640 for its 
birth, but this is obviously absurd, since KifTen became 
pastor of the newly formed church in Devonshire Square, 
London, in that year. There is no reason to suppose that 
the church antedates the conquest of Ireland by Crom- 
well in 1649, an d in fact our earliest knowledge of such 
a church is 1653. There are but two other churches 
now existing which date back to the seventeenth century, 
and but one other that is so old as the closing decade of 
the eighteenth — for one hundred and forty-three years 
not a single church seems to have been formed, at least 
not one that is now in existence. Comment is almost 
needless. 

Baptist churches have ever found Ireland an uncon- 
genial soil ; and after more than two centuries of struggle 
there are little more than two dozen churches of the faith 
in the island. To have produced the illustrious scholar, 
Alexander Carson, is the chief contribution to Baptist 
progress of our Irish brethren, and one of which a larger 
body might be proud. He was born in County Tyrone, 
in 1776. Early in life he became a believer in Christ, 
and later was graduated with the first honor at the Uni- 
versity of Glasgow. He became pastor of a Presbyterian 
church at Tubbermore, Ireland, and while in that service 
came to see from his study of the original Scriptures 
that the churches of the New Testament were congrega- 
tional, not presbyterial, in polity; and that they were 
composed of baptized believers only. There were few 
Baptist churches in Ireland, there was no society to 
which he could appeal for support; of his salary of one 
hundred and forty pounds he received one hundred 
pounds from the royal treasury. If he became a Baptist 
he must not only sever all connection with old friends, 
but risk starvation. He did what he felt to be clearly 



276 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

his duty, was baptized, and began to preach to such as 
would listen. He soon gathered a church, and lived to 
see it grow to five hundred members, many of whom 
walked from seven to ten miles in order to attend its 
services. 

Doctor Carson was an industrious student, and became 
a great scholar; but for his inability to sign the Confes- 
sion of Faith he might have been professor of Greek in 
the University of Glasgow. His work on baptism was a 
complete reply to all the objections that had been raised 
by the ignorant and prejudiced against the teaching 
and practice of Baptists regarding this ordinance of 
Christ. Every contention of his has since been amply 
sustained by the scholarship of the world — not by Baptist 
scholarship alone, but by Pedobaptist. 

There were in Ireland at the close of the nineteenth 
century thirty-one Baptist churches, with two thousand 
six hundred and ninety-six members. 

The capture of Quebec, in 1759, marks the beginning 
of Protestant conquest in Canada. Baptists were among 
the first to profit by the new order of things under the 
Baptist rule. In the following year Shubael Dimock 
emigrated from Connecticut and settled in Nova Scotia. 
He had separated from the churches of the Standing 
Order, and for holding unauthorized religious meetings 
had suffered both corporal punishment and imprisonment. 
His son Daniel had gone even further and denied the 
scripturalness of infant baptism. These new settlers were 
accompanied by a Baptist minister, the Rev. John Sutton, 
who remained in the province about a year, baptizing 
Daniel Dimock and some others. Daniel Dimock baptized 
his father about 1775, but so far as is known no Baptist 
church was organized. A visit to the province in 1761 
by the Rev. Ebenezer Moulton, of Massachusetts, is said 



BAPTISTS IN THE GREATER BRITAIN 277 

to have been followed by conversions and baptisms at 
Yarmouth and Horton, a church being formed at the 
latter place about 1763, of both Baptists and Congrega- 
tionalists. This minister was the ancestor of Mrs. 
McMaster, the founder of Moulton College. 

It was in 1763 that the first real foothold was gained 
in Canada by the Baptists. Members of the Second 
Church in Swansea, Mass., and of two or three neigh- 
boring churches, to the number of thirteen, constituted 
a Baptist church, chose the Rev. Nathan Mason as their 
pastor, and emigrated in a body to Sackville, then in 
Nova Scotia, but since 1784 in the province of New 
Brunswick. They remained for eight years, during which 
time their numbers had increased to sixty; then, for 
some reason, the original immigrants returned to Massa- 
chusetts, and the church became scattered and finally 
ceased to exist. A new organization was, however, 
formed in the same place in 1799. 

Up to the year 1775, therefore, the net progress of the 
Baptists had been small ; there was a handful of believers, 
scattered here and there, but not a single church had 
been able to maintain an existence. In that year Henry 
Alline was converted and became an evangelist of the 
Whitefield type, traveling up and down Nova Scotia and 
preaching the gospel with great power. He was a Con- 
gregationalism and many of his converts formed churches 
of that order, but in a number of instances Baptist 
churches trace their origin to this revival of religion. 

The first of these was constituted of ten members, Oc- 
tober 29, 1778, at Horton, and remains to this day not 
only the oldest but one of the strongest churches in 
the province. The Rev. Nicholson Pearson was chosen 
pastor, and in the two following years fifty-two were 
added to the church. This growth in numbers, however, 
was in part accomplished by the adoption of open com- 



278 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

munion and mixed membership. Congregationalists 
being admitted to full fellowship on equal terms with 
baptized believers. It was not until 1809 that the Horton 
church became what we understand by the phrase, a 
Baptist church. The practice of mixed membership, or 
at any rate of open communion, was general among the 
Baptist churches of this province until the early years 
of the last century, they having gradually felt their way 
toward their present position. The Horton church is 
notable for having had but three pastors in the first 
century of its existence: Rev. Nicholas Pearson, from 
1778 to 1 79 1 ; Rev. Theodore Seth Harding, from 1795 
to 1855, when he was succeeded by Rev. Stephen W. 
De Blois, who was still pastor at the celebration of the 
centenary. Churches were organized rapidly between 
1780 and 1800, including those of Lower Granville, Hali- 
fax (1795), Newport (1799), Sackville (1799), as well 
as Annapolis and Upper Granville, Chester, Cornwallis, 
Yarmouth, and Digby, the dates of whose organizations 
are unknown. Of these churches the First Halifax seems 
to have been the only one that admitted to membership 
only baptized believers ; and it is doubtful whether even 
that church practised restricted communion during this 
period. In this respect the early history of the Baptists 
of Canada differs widely from that of the first Baptist 
churches in the United States. 

The first Baptists of Lower Canada seem to have arisen 
among a settlement of American Tories, not far from 
the Vermont line. Elders John Hebbard and Ariel Ken- 
drick, missionaries of the Woodstock Association, of 
Vermont, visited them in 1794, and their preaching was 
followed by an extensive revival. A few years later, 
Rev. Elisha Andrews, of Fairfax, Vt., visited these people 
at their request, baptized about thirty converts, and 
organized the Eaton church. A number of other churches 



BAPTISTS IN THE GREATER BRITAIN 279 

were soon afterward formed in this region, several of 
which were for a time affiliated with the Richmond 
Association, of Vermont. The Domestic Missionary So- 
ciety of Massachusetts, and other like New England or- 
ganizations, paid much attention to this field, frequently 
sending missionaries thither. 

The beginnings in Upper Canada seem to have been 
practically simultaneous, but quite without concert, with 
those in the lower province. In 1794 Reuben Crandall, 
at that time a licentiate, settled on the northern shore 
of Lake Ontario, in what is now Prince Edward County, 
and the following year he had gained converts enough to 
organize the Hallowell church. Of this body there now 
remains no authentic record, but another church formed 
at Haldimund in 1798 proved more permanent, and is 
how in its second century of vigorous life. Other min- 
isters from " the States " followed, and other churches 
were gathered in like manner. About the year 1800, 
Titus Fitch, another licentiate, located in Charlotteville 
township, where his labors resulted in the formation 
of a church of thirty members in 1804. It appears to 
have been the fashion in those days when a young licen- 
tiate was not called by a church, for him to go out in 
the region beyond and call a church — a fashion that may 
be commended to the rising ministry of our day for their 
imitation. 

It will therefore be seen that the first Baptist churches 
of Canada, in all its provinces alike, for the most part 
owe their origin either to colonies from the United States 
or to the labors of missionaries from this country. The 
most marked exception is found in the group of churches 
that compose the Ottawa Association that, together with 
their pastors, were largely composed of Scotch immi- 
grants, and trace their line of descent as Baptists to the 
labors in Edinburgh of the brothers Haldane. Baptist 



280 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

growth was slow up to 1830, and has never been rapid 
in Quebec, whose population is so largely French and 
Catholic. It was likewise retarded unduly by various in- 
ternal disagreements, chief of which was the question of 
close or open communion. The great majority of Ca- 
nadian Baptists have, for a generation, belonged to the 
Regular or strict-communion wing of the denomination. 

Alexander Crawford, a Scotchman, and one of the 
Haldane missionaries, was the first (1814) to preach and 
baptize according to the New Testament order in Prince 
Edward's Island, and the first churches adhered rigidly 
to the practice of the Scotch Baptists. In 1826 the first 
church was formed at Bedeque that was from the begin- 
ning associated with the churches of the Maritime Prov- 
inces, though most of the others fell into line eventually. 
The differences between the churches of Scotch origin 
and the other Baptists of the provinces were numerous ; 
the former insisted strenuously on a plural eldership, on 
the weekly celebration of the Lord's Supper, and es- 
pecially that members of the church should not marry 
those who belonged to other denominations. A domestic 
and foreign missionary society was formed in 1845, and 
the Island Baptist Association in 1868. The latter or- 
ganization was especially useful in promoting denomina- 
tional advance. From thirteen churches and six hundred 
members it has grown to twenty-five churches and over 
two thousand members. 

The first union of these Baptist churches was formed 
in 1800, at Granville, by ten churches, under the title of 
the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick Baptist Associa- 
tion. In one respect it differed from other bodies of 
this kind, though in the main it pretended to " no other 
powers than those of an advisory council " ; for more 
than a quarter of a century it assumed the function of 
examining and ordaining candidates for the ministry — 



BAPTISTS IN THE GREATER BRITAIN 28l 

the sole instance of the kind, it is believed, in the 
history of Baptists. In 1809 the practice of open com- 
munion was discontinued by the associated churches. Four 
churches withdrew from fellowship with the others for 
a time, but afterwards returned. By 182 1 the growth 
of this body led to its division, for greater convenience, 
into two Associations, one for each province. The Nova 
Scotia Association, in turn, was divided, in 1850, into the 
Eastern, Central, and Western Associations. The New 
Brunswick Association, in 1847, divided into Eastern 
and Western Associations; a Southern Association was 
organized in 1850; and in 1868 the Prince Edward's 
Island Association assumed an independent existence. 
These successive developments of organization are land- 
marks of denominational growth, indicating, better than 
statistics, the progress of the churches in numbers and 
spiritual efficiency. At present these Associations repre- 
sent three hundred and ninety-nine churches, with forty- 
four thousand eight hundred and forty-one members. 

In Ontario and Quebec the growth has been equally 
marked. The first organization of the churches of Upper 
Canada was the Thurlow Association (afterward the 
Haldimand), formed in 1803; the Eastern and Grand 
River Associations followed, in 1819; and others at fre- 
quent intervals thereafter. In Quebec the progress was 
slower; the earliest churches, as we have seen, remained 
affiliated with Vermont Associations. It was not until 
1830 that a Baptist church was established in Montreal, 
and not till 1835 that the Ottawa Association was formed. 
In 1845, the Montreal was formed from the Ottawa. 
The Baptist churches of these provinces now number 
four hundred and thirty, with forty thousand two hun- 
dred and seventy members, and report three thousand 
five hundred and eight baptisms for 1900. In the 
last decade these churches have increased in membership 



282 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

twenty-eight per cent., while those of the Maritime 
Provinces in the same period have gained less than ten 
per cent. If these rates are maintained another decade, the 
churches of Ontario and Quebec will be considerably 
stronger, numerically, at least, than their elder sisters. 

Early in their history the Baptists of the Maritime 
Provinces acknowledged the obligations of the Great 
Commission, and to the best of their power fulfilled them. 
A missionary society was formed as early as 181 5 in 
Nova Scotia, and a similar organization followed in New 
Brunswick in 1820. Both of these societies vigorously 
prosecuted work at home and abroad for many years. 
In 1846 these societies were consolidated into one, known 
as " The Baptist Convention of the Maritime Provinces." 
Each Association in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and 
Prince Edward's Island is entitled to send two delegates 
to each meeting of this body, and each contributing 
church may send one member. Two Boards for Home 
and Foreign Missions direct the Convention's aggressive 
work, in addition to which there are Boards for Min- 
isterial Education and Ministerial Relief; while close re- 
lations are maintained with Acadia College by nom- 
inating every three years six new members of its Board 
of governors. 

The Canada Baptist Missionary Society was organized 
in June, 1837, through the agency of the Ottawa Asso- 
ciation, and its headquarters were in Montreal. After 
some years of checkered existence, it finally succumbed 
to the stress of the communion controversies. In spite 
of its disclaimers, it was suspected of being too friendly 
to open communion, and lost the support of the strict 
communionists. The latter finally formed the organiza- 
tions in which they could have more confidence: the 
Western Canada Baptist Home Mission Society, in 1854, 
and the Foreign Mission Society of Ontario and Quebec, 



BAPTISTS IN THE GREATER BRITAIN 283 

in 1866. The latter was for the first seven years of its 
life an auxiliary of the American Baptist Missionary 
Union, but since 1873 has been independent, and main- 
tains a flourishing mission among the Telugus. Home 
mission work among the Indians has been a special 
feature of the Canadian Baptist missionary enterprises. 
The Grand Ligne Mission among the French Catholics, 
founded in 1835, was for a time undenominational and 
independent, but for more than fifty years has been car- 
ried on under Baptist auspices, though Pedobaptists have 
also, to some extent, promoted the work. It is said that 
more than five thousand have been brought to the knowl- 
edge of the truth through this mission, many of whom 
are unofficial missionaries among their own people in 
Canada and New England. 

In 1888 a bill was passed by the Dominion Parliament 
consolidating all the previously existing societies (except 
the Grand Ligne Mission), including some not named 
above, into " The Baptist Convention of Ontario and 
Quebec." Five Boards — Home Mission, Foreign Mis- 
sion, Ministerial Superannuation and Widows' and Or- 
phans', Publication, Church Edifice — conduct the work 
formerly done by these various societies, and the churches 
thus have direct relations with a single delegated body, 
which is their agent in all general denominational work. 
This seems to be almost an ideal method of organization, 
and must be a powerful promotive of denominational 
unity and efficiency. Since 1881 Manitoba and the 
Northwest has had a separate Convention. 

In 1828, when the Baptists of Nova Scotia had but 
twenty-nine churches and one thousand seven hundred 
and seventy-two members, they established an academy 
at Horton; in 1838 they established Acadia College; and 
in 1 861 a seminary for young women. The three institu- 
tions are still prosperous, and have together about three 



284 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

hundred and thirty students. The institutions are 
governed by a Board of trustees appointed by the Con- 
vention of the Maritime Provinces. The New Brunswick 
Baptists established an academy at Frederickton, which 
ceased to exist some years ago; it had a successor at 
St. Martins, with better prospects of permanence for a 
time, but that has also succumbed. The Baptists of Que- 
bec were unfortunate in their sole educational venture, 
that of establishing a college at Montreal. It was founded 
in 1838, and after a few years erected a fine stone building, 
which proved too costly an enterprise. After struggling 
vainly with debts for some years, in 1849 ft was found 
necessary to sell the property, liquidate the debts, and let 
the college perish. Many causes contributed to its 
downfall, its location being perhaps the chief. 

The Baptists of Ontario have been more fortunate, 
in part perhaps by reason of greater prudence. They 
established a college at Woodstock about i860, with both 
an arts and a theological department. Many of the most 
useful ministers of the Dominion, and some in the United 
States, received their training there. In 1880, the liber- 
ality of the late William McMaster founded the To- 
ronto Baptist College, a theological seminary at first, to 
which the theological department of Woodstock was 
transferred. The new institution was enlarged later into 
McMaster University, an arts department being estab- 
lished in connection with the theological, and Woodstock 
being voluntarily reduced to the grade of an academy and 
feeder of the university. A college for women, known 
as Moulton College, has since been established by Mrs. 
McMaster (nee Moulton), and is affiliated with the uni- 
versity. The result of these new enterprises has been a 
great stimulus of interest in education among Canadian 
Baptists. The new century opened with an enrolment of 
over four hundred students in the three institutions. The 



BAPTISTS IN THE GREATER BRITAIN 285 

gross assets amount to about nine hundred thousand 
dollars, making available for the three schools an income 
of about forty thousand dollars. 

But little material is accessible for the history of the 
Baptists of Australasia. Rev. John Saunders, a Baptist 
minister, who had established two churches in London, 
became very desirous of preaching to the convicts and 
planting a Christian church at Botany Bay. He formed 
the Bathurst Street Church, Sidney, in 1834. His ardu- 
ous labors finally broke his health, but a worthy successor 
was found in Rev. James Yoller, by whose effort an As- 
sociation was formed, that in 1891 reports twenty-six 
churches and one thousand four hundred and sixty-one 
members. The Baptist church in Melbourne, Victoria, 
was organized in 1845 by Rev. William Ham, and the 
cause has prospered continuously. There are now forty- 
four churches and four thousand five hundred and fifty- 
eight members. In South Australia the first Baptist 
church to be established was the Hinders Street Chapel 
of Adelaide, which dates from 1861. Progress here has 
been hindered by an excess of the spirit of independency 
and too little co-operation, but there are fifty-two churches 
and three thousand six hundred and sixty-five members. 
The Wharf Street Chapel in Moreton Bay, Queensland, 
was built in 1856, after Rev. B. G. Wilson had preached 
there for several years, and from this the Baptists of the 
colony have increased to twenty-seven churches and two 
thousand one hundred and seventy members. During 
the past few years there has been a slight loss here. 

From New Zealand are reported twenty-eight churches 
and two thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight mem- 
bers; and besides the work among the white people a 
mission is maintained among the Maoris, of whom there 
are still about fifty thousand. The Baptist cause here 



286 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

owes its present prosperity largely to the labors of Rev. 
D. Dolomore, who went thither in 185 1. The first church 
was organized in 1854, and from that time growth was 
steady, especially in the southern section. A Baptist 
Union was formed about 1880, which has been a great 
help to the churches, especially in uniting them in mis- 
sionary efforts. Work was begun by the Baptists in 
Tasmania in 1834, but there have been meager results 
here, in spite of many years of hard labor, there being 
at present but nine churches and five hundred and 
seventy-four members. 



CHAPTER XIX 

BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 

THE history of American Baptists naturally divides 
into three periods or movements. The first coin- 
cides nearly with the colonial period of our secular na- 
tional history. It is marked by faithful witness to the 
truth on the one hand, and by bitter persecution on the 
other. The second period also corresponds with an era 
of secular history, the time of territorial expansion, and 
is marked by unexampled growth and missionary activity 
(1776-1845). The third period, extending from about 
the time of the Mexican War to our own day, may be 
called the period of evangelism and education. These 
divisions are largely arbitrary, of course, and there are 
no well-marked lines of division, the periods designated 
overlapping each other. The division has, however, a 
certain mnemonic value ; and as we proceed the character- 
istics attributed to each period will be seen to be justified 
by the facts. 

The historians of Puritan New England assert that 
among the early immigrants to their colony were some 
tainted with Anabaptism. One of those suspected of this 
offense was Hanserd Knollys. Of the details of his stay 
in America little is known save that it was barely three 
years. He arrived at Boston in 1638, and very soon 
after became pastor of a church at Piscataway (now 
Dover), N. H. There is no evidence that Knollys held 
Baptist views at this time; as we have already seen (p. 
216), he was ordained pastor of a Baptist church in Lon- 
don (England) in 1645, and all the circumstances of his 

287 



288 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

life up to that time compel the conclusion that he had only 
recently become a Baptist. While he was pastor at Piscat- 
away his church was rent by a dispute regarding infant 
baptism (this we know from an Episcopalian visitor to 
the colony in April, 1641), which warrants the conclu- 
sion that though there were people of Baptist sentiments 
in the church it was not a Baptist church. To escape 
persecution the church in large part removed in 164 1 to 
Long Island, and thence to New Jersey, where they 
formed a Baptist church (probably in 1689) and gave to 
it the same name the New Hampshire colony had borne. 
This is the story of the origin of the oldest Baptist 
church but one (Middletown, formed in 1688) in New 
Jersey. If we conclude that Knollys and his church were 
not Baptist, then the first Baptist church organized in 
America was that of Providence. But before speaking 
of that we must consider the previous history of its 
founder. 

Much obscurity hangs over the early life of Roger 
Williams, but he was probably the son of a merchant 
tailor of London, James Williams, and his wife Alice. 
He was born about 1607, and Sir Edward Coke, the 
great English lawyer, attracted by his promise, secured 
for him entrance to Sutton's Hospital. Here he completed 
his preparatory studies and then entered the University 
of Cambridge, where he took his bachelor's degree in 
1627. He was offered several livings in the Church of 
England, but it does not appear that he was ever actually 
beneficed. He was apparently ordained, since he is de- 
scribed on his arrival at Boston as " a godly minister." 
He embraced Puritan principles, and it is even probable 
that he was a Separatist in principle before leaving Eng- 
land. He determined to leave England, and in 163 1 
landed in Boston, where he hoped to find greater religious 
freedom. He found the Puritans fully as intolerant as 



BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 289 

Laud, and was by no means satisfied with the half-way 
reformation that they were disposed to make. He saw 
the inconsistency of the New England theocracy, in which 
the functions of the Church and State were so inter- 
blended that the identity of each was in danger of being 
lost. He had grasped the principle that the Church and 
the State should be entirely separate and independent 
each of the other. It is not at all probable that Williams 
had imbibed these notions from the English Baptists, or 
that he even knew of their holding such doctrines. At 
this time he was not, at any rate, an Anabaptist. He 
found no fault with the Congregational doctrine or dis- 
cipline, but denounced the principle of a State Church, 
and upheld the right of soul liberty on natural and 
scriptural grounds alike. 

In spite of his heterodoxy, Williams was called to be 
minister to the church at Salem, where he was highly 
esteemed for his zeal and eloquence. The Salem church 
had acted against the will of the Massachusetts authori- 
ties, and to prevent trouble Williams went for a time to 
Plymouth. He returned to Salem as pastor again, but 
was soon summoned before the court in Boston and 
condemned to banishment. The first (and no doubt the 
chief) charge against him was, " That the magistrate 
ought not to punish the breach of the first table, other- 
wise than in such case as did disturb the civil peace." 
This was also stated in the decree of banishment as the 
chief cause: "Whereas, Mr. Roger Williams, one of the 
elders of the church of Salem, hath broached and di- 
vulged new and dangerous opinions against the author- 
ity of magistrates." Nothing can be clearer, as a matter 
of historical record, than that the chief cause of the 
banishment of Roger Williams was his teaching with 
regard to religious liberty, that the magistrate has no 
right to punish breaches of the first table of the law — 

T 



29O A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

those commandments, namely, that relate to the worship 
of God. 

After his banishment, Williams made his way, in the 
dead of winter, to Narragansett Bay. While at Plymouth 
he had learned something of the Indian dialects, and he 
was kindly received. At what is now Providence he 
founded a settlement, many of his former Salem charge 
removing to this place. The original settlers in 1638 en- 
tered into a compact reading thus : " We whose names are 
hereunder written, being desirous to inhabit in the town 
of Providence, do promise to submit ourselves in active 
and passive obedience to all such orders or agencies as 
shall be made for the public good of the body in an 
orderly way, by the major consent of the present in- 
habitants, masters of families, incorporated together into 
a township, and such others whom they shall admit into 
the same, only in civil things." A similar agreement was 
signed in 1640; the principle was embodied in the code 
of laws adopted by the colony in 1647, an d was finally in- 
corporated in the royal charter given by Charles II. in 
1663 : " Our royal will and pleasure is, that no person 
within the said colony, at any time hereafter, shall be 
in any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in 
question, for any differences of opinion in matters of 
religion, and do not actually disturb the civil peace of 
the said colony." Thus was founded the first govern- 
ment in the world, whose corner-stone was absolute 
religious liberty. 

It is true that a few other countries had before this, and 
for periods more or less brief, tolerated what they re- 
garded as heresy; but this was the first government or- 
ganized on the principle of absolute liberty to all, in such 
matters of belief and practice as did not conflict with the 
peace and order of society, or with ordinary good morals. 
And though this government was insignificant in point of 



BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 2Q I 

numbers and power, it was the pioneer in a great revo- 
lution, its principle having become the fundamental law 
of every American State, and influenced strongly even 
the most conservative European States. Though he did 
not originate the idea of soul liberty, it was given to 
Roger Williams, in the providence of God, to be its stand- 
ard-bearer in a new world, where it should have full 
opportunity to work itself out, and afford by its fruits 
a demonstration that it is of God and not of man. 

Up to this time Williams was not a Baptist; but his 
continued studies of the Scriptures led him to the belief 
that the sprinkling of water on an unconscious babe 
does not constitute obedience to the command of our 
Lord, " Be baptized." Having arrived at this conviction, 
he wished to be baptized; but in this little colony, sep- 
arated from other civilized countries by an ocean or a 
wilderness, where was a qualified administrator to be 
found ? In the meantime, other converts to the truth had 
been made, whether by his agency or by independent 
study of the word. They resolved to follow the precept 
and example of Christ in the only way possible to them. 
Some time about March, 1639, therefore, Williams was 
baptized by Ezekiel Holliman, who had been a member 
of his church at Salem ; and thereupon Williams baptized 
ten others, and the first Baptist church on American 
soil was formed. It is highly probable, though not con- 
clusively established, that this baptism was an immersion. 
No other baptism is known to have been practised, in a 
single instance, by American Baptists. There are a num- 
ber of other instances in the history of American Baptists 
of the formation of a church after this manner — the con- 
stituent members either being ignorant that there were 
other Christians who agreed with them, or being so far 
distant from any other Baptists that the procurement of 
an administrator was out of the question. 



292 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Williams was, however, one of the most erratic and 
unstable men of his time ; and a few months later he came 
to the conclusion that this baptism by one who had not 
himself been baptized in an orderly manner was not 
valid baptism. He withdrew himself from the church, 
and for the rest of his life was unconnected with any 
religious body, calling himself a " seeker." He seems 
to have been misled by an idea that, if logically carried 
out, would unchurch every church, by making all 
administration of ordinances invalid. 

Whether the present First Baptist Church of Provi- 
dence is the lineal successor of this church founded by 
Roger Williams is a difficult historical question, about 
which a positive opinion should be expressed with diffi- 
dence. Tradition maintains that the line of succession 
has been unbroken; but the records to prove this are 
lacking. The facts appear to be that after the departure of 
Williams, one of those whom he had baptized, Thomas 
Olney, became the head of the church, to which was 
added soon after a number of new-comers, chief among 
which were William Wickendon, Chad Brown, and Greg- 
ory Dexter. The original members were of Puritan an- 
tecedents and Calvinists; the new-comers appear to have 
been Arminians, and inclined to make the laying on of 
hands after baptism an article of faith. It has been 
conjectured that the three men named were associated 
with Olney in a plural eldership, but all these matters are 
doubtful since the earliest records of the Providence 
church begin with the year 1775, 1 and back of that we 
have only tradition and conjecture. All that is certain 
is that controversy began and continued until it reached 
the acute stage in 1652, when the church was divided. 
A part, the smaller, apparently, adhered to the original 
faith of the church, and remained under the pastoral 

»Callendar, » R. I. Hist. Coll.," Vol. IV., p. 117. 



BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 293 

care of Thomas Olney. This wing of the church became 
extinct somewhere about 1720. The larger part of the 
members adhered to Wickendon, Brown, and Dexter, and 
became a Six-principle church, remaining such until a 
comparatively late time. In 1771, through the influence 
of President James Manning, the majority adopted a 
Calvinistic creed, whereupon the Six-principle minority 
seceded. Both these branches still survive, the former 
now bearing the title of the First Baptist Church of 
Providence. 

There is another church that disputes with this the 
honor of being the oldest Baptist church in America. 
Its founder, Dr. John Clarke, is one of the most inter- 
esting characters of his time, but his early history is 
much involved in dispute and obscurity ; the true date of 
his birth even is unknown. According to one authority, 
perhaps the best, he was born in Suffolk, England, Oc- 
tober 8, 1609. We know that he was a scholar in his 
manhood, with a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew such 
as men seldom gained in England outside of the uni- 
versities ; but which university he attended, and what de- 
gree he took, are facts not as yet discovered by investi- 
gation. An extant legal document bearing date of March 
12, 1656, is almost the only relic of his life in England; 
in that he describes himself as a physician of London. 
There seems no room for doubt that he was of the Puri- 
tan party, and that he left England to escape persecution 
and enjoy the greater freedom of the new world. 

When he reached Boston, in November, 1637, it must 
have seemed to him that he had truly jumped from the 
frying-pan into the fire. There had been trouble among 
the Puritans there, and Sir Henry Vane and others had 
been deprived of their arms and ordered to leave the 
colony. Clarke became the leader of certain of these in 
establishing a colony elsewhere. A constitution was 



294 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

drawn up and signed in March, 1638, which made the 
law of Christ the law of this new community. An ex- 
periment was made in New Hampshire, but the climate 
was thought too cold, and a location was sought farther 
south. This led to the purchase from the Indians of the 
island of Aquidneck, which was renamed Rhode Island. 
Two settlements were formed, the northern one called 
Portsmouth and the southern Newport. The original 
code of laws has not been preserved, but in 1641 it was 
" Ordered that none be accounted a delinquent for doc- 
trine, provided that it be not directly repugnant to the 
government or laws established." The Providence com- 
pact limiting the authority of the magistrate to civil things 
was made in 1639, and is the older instrument, but 
Newport divides with Providence the honor of first 
establishing this principle in civil government. 

In the same year in which the colony was founded, a 
church was organized in Newport, and Mr. Clarke became 
its teaching elder, apparently from the first. What sort 
of a church this was we do not positively know. 1 There 
is no evidence at present known to exist by which the 
religious opinions and practices of Clarke up to this time 
may be determined. He may have been imbued with 
Baptist doctrine before coming to America, but there is 
nothing in his conduct inconsistent with the theory that 
he came here simply a Puritan Separatist, like Roger 
Williams. Our first definite knowledge of this church 
comes from the report made in March, 1640, by the 
commissioners from the church in Boston. Of the faults 
they allege, Anabaptism is not one, whence it seems a 
safe conclusion that at this time this was not a Baptist 
church. When and how it became such we do not know. 
The date 1644 is purely traditional, and the first positive 

1 A majority had been members of Cotton's church in Boston. Winthrop's 
Journal shows that from September, 1638, Clarke was their preacher. 



BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 295 

knowledge we have is October, 1648, when we know * 
that a Baptist church existed in Newport, having fifteen 
members. In 1654 or 1656 a controversy arose in this 
church, as in that in Providence, and with a like result — 
a Six-principle church was constituted, under the leader- 
ship of William Vaughn, who had previously received 
the rite of laying on of hands from Wickendon and 
Dexter at Providence. 

Doctor Clarke retained his connection with the church 
he founded until his death, though much of his time 
was absorbed by public duties. In the autumn of 165 1 
he was sent by the colonists to England, to obtain a new 
and better charter. He remained there twelve years, 
finding it impossible to gain his end during the Pro- 
tectorate. Shortly after his arrival he printed his " 111 
News from New England," which shares with Roger 
Williams' " Bloody Tenet of Persecution," the praise of 
advocating liberty of conscience at a time when that doc- 
trine was decried even by those who called themselves 
friends of liberty. Finally, what he could not procure 
from the Cromwells he succeeded in obtaining from 
Charles II., who on July 9, 1663, set his hand to a charter 
that secured civil and religious liberty to the colony of 
Rhode Island — a charter under which the State was 
governed until the year 1843. 

Returning to Newport in 1664, Clarke became one of 
the chief citizens of the colony. He was deputy gov- 
ernor in 1669, and again in 1671, having declined the 
office in 1670. Soon after he retired to private life, and 
died suddenly April 20, 1676. His services to his State, 
and to the cause of liberty, were quite as great as those 
of the better known Williams. But for him the charter 
of 1663 would never have been obtained; and there is 
good reason to infer, from internal evidence, that a good 

iCallendar, " R. I. Hist. Coll.," IV., 117. 



296 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

part of that instrument was drawn by him. He was the 
most eminent Baptist of his time in New England, and 
his name deserves to be held in the highest honor. 

The formation of Baptist churches in Massachusetts 
was greatly impeded by the resolute opposition of the 
colonial authorities. A theocratic government had been 
established, in which all rights of citizenship were denied 
to those who were not members of the churches of the 
Standing Order. 1 From the first there were individuals 
who came into collision with this government, by reason 
of their Anabaptist convictions. These the magistrates 
proceeded to deal with sharply. In 1644 2 one Thomas 
Painter, of Hingham, refused to have his child baptized, 
and stoutly protested against such a ceremony as " an 
anti-Christian ordinance," whereupon he was tied up and 
whipped. In the same year, and for several years fol- 
lowing, there are records of several presentments to the 
Salem court of men who withheld their children from 
baptism or argued against infant baptism. These men 
were proceeded against on general principles, without 
authority of law, but in November, 1644, the General 
Court enacted a statute that whoever " shall either openly 
condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about 
secretly to seduce others from the approbation or use 
thereof, or shall purposely depart the congregation at 
the ministration of the ordinances, or shall deny the 
ordinance of magistracy, or their lawful right and au- 
thority to make war, or to punish the outward breaches 
of the first table, and shall appear to the court wilfully 
and obstinately to continue therein after due time and 
means of conviction, every such person or persons shall 
be sentenced to banishment." 

1 Order of the General Court, quoted by Wood, "History of the First 
Baptist Church of Boston," p. 6. 

2 Backus (Vol. I., p. 93) shows there was an attempt to organize a church 
at Weymouth in 1639. 






BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 297 

The most prominent among the violators of this law 
was Henry Dunster. A native of Lancashire (born about 
1612), he was educated at Magdalen College, Cambridge, 
where he took his bachelor's degree in 1630 and the 
master's in 1634. He probably took orders in the Church 
of England, but his advancement was made impossible 
by his adoption of Separatist ideas, and he decided to 
seek a career in the new world. He arrived at Boston 
toward the end of the summer of 1640, and in the fol- 
lowing year he was chosen, almost by acclamation, to 
be the president of the new college established by the 
Massachusetts colony. For this post his learning, his 
piety, and his skill in affairs combined to make him 
an ideal occupant, and for twelve years he discharged 
the duties connected with his important office with 
universal satisfaction and applause. 

In the year 1653 the birth of a fourth child brought 
to an issue doubts that he appears to have entertained 
for some time regarding infant baptism. He now defi- 
nitely made known his conviction that only believers 
should be baptized, and set forth his reasons in several 
sermons. Great excitement was at once provoked by 
this procedure of Dunster's, and no wonder. The denial 
of infant baptism was a blow at the very foundations of 
the Puritan theory of Church and State, and Dunster 
had become a dangerous enemy of the Commonwealth. 
Either he must be suppressed or the whole social fabric 
of Massachusetts must be remodeled. We need not be 
surprised that the former alternative was chosen. Dun- 
ster was virtually compelled to resign the presidency of 
the college, but it is possible that no further proceedings 
would have been taken against him save for his own in- 
discretion. He insisted on being heard during a service 
of the Cambridge church, and set forth his views at 
length. For the offense of thus disturbing worship, 



298 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

he was indicted, tried, and condemned to receive an 
admonition from the General Court. He was also pre- 
sented for refusal to have his child baptized, and required 
to give surety for his further appearance in court at 
Boston, in September, 1657. No record of further pro- 
ceedings against him remains, and his death in 1659 
removed him from the jurisdiction of the General Court 
of Massachusetts. 

What he thus escaped may perhaps be inferred from 
the treatment of John Clarke, the founder of the New- 
port church, and Obadiah Holmes, who was destined to 
be Clarke's successor. While they were spending the 
Lord's Day with a brother who lived near Lynn, it was 
concluded to have religious services in the house. Two 
constables broke in while Mr. Clarke was preaching from 
Rev. 3 : 10, and the men were haled before the court. 
For this offense they were sentenced to pay, Clarke a 
fine of twenty pounds, and Holmes one of thirty pounds, 
in default of which they were to be " well whipped." A 
friend paid Clarke's fine, and he was set at liberty whether 
he would or no; but on September 6, 165 1, Holmes was 
" whipped unmercifully" (the phrase is Bancroft's) in 
the streets of Boston, for the atrocious crime of preaching 
the gospel and of adding thereto the denial of infant 
baptism. 

These repressive measures were quite unavailing ; Ana- 
baptist sentiments continued to increase among the Puri- 
tans, and in addition, immigrants began to come who 
had been Baptists in the old country. John Myles, who, 
as we have seen, was the founder of the first Baptist 
church in Wales, was one of the victims of the Act of 
Uniformity, and soon after it went into effect he and 
a number of the members of the Ilston church came to 
the new world and at first settled at Rehoboth. Here, in 
1663, they organized a Baptist church, which was, in 



BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 299 

1667, removed to a new settlement, named Swansea, in 
memory of the city near which they had dwelt in Wales. 
This church, the first formed in the Massachusetts col- 
ony, has had an uninterrupted existence to this day. As 
became its origin, it was a strongly Calvinistic body, but a 
second Swansea church was formed in 1685 that was 
as strongly Arminian. 

The time was now ripe for an organized protest against 
the errors of the Puritan churches, by the formation of 
a Baptist church in Boston itself. The leader of this enter- 
prise was Thomas Goold, or Gould, a friend of Presi- 
dent Dunster, a resident of Charlestown. Influenced, no 
doubt, by his friend's teaching and example, Goold re- 
fused, in 1655, to present an infant child for baptism, and 
was duly admonished therefor by the Charlestown elders. 
A course of warning, expostulation, and discipline con- 
tinuing for ten years so far failed to convince Thomas 
Goold of his error, that on May 28, 1665, a Baptist 
church was organized in his house, where meetings of 
Baptists had been held more or less regularly for sev- 
eral years. A storm of persecution at once broke upon 
this little band of nine, of whom two were women. The 
Swansea church, being situated on the borders of Rhode 
Island, was comparatively undisturbed ; not so the church 
in Boston. At the time of its organization the Puritan 
churches were torn by the dissensions that finally re- 
sulted in the adoption of the Half-way Covenant ; but, as 
in all family quarrels, both parties to the contest were 
ready to pounce upon any intruder. Such they consid- 
ered this new Baptist church to be, and a determined 
effort was made to suppress it. Shortly after its organi- 
zation the members were summoned before the court and 
ordered to " desist from such theire meeting, & irre- 
ligious practises, as they would Answer the contrary at 
theire peril." 



300 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

They were not the desisting kind, however, and per- 
sisted in teaching their " damnable errors," and holding 
meetings, whereupon nearly all of them were at one time 
or another, and several more than once, imprisoned or 
fined, or both. Thomas Goold, who had become the first 
pastor of the church, was the severest sufferer, though 
he had several companions ; and his health was so broken 
by his frequent and long imprisonments that he died in 
October, 1675. In 1670 he removed to Noddle's Island, 
and the church met in his house there, coming from 
Boston, Woburn, and other places for the purpose. 

In the latter part of the year 1678 the church began 
to build a meeting-house in Boston, on what is now Salem 
Street, a modest frame building, on ground owned by 
two of the members. This was indeed flying in the face 
of the Puritan State, and by order of the General Court 
the marshal nailed up the doors and posted the following 
notice upon them: 

All Psons are to take notice yt by orde of ye Court ye dores 
of this howse are shutt up & yt they are Inhibitted to hold 
any meeting therein or to open ye dores thereof, without lishence 
from Authority, till ye gennerall Court take further order as they 
will answer ye Contrary att theire p'ill, dated in boston 8th 
march 1680, by orde of ye Councell 

Edward Rawson Secretary. 

This was, however, the last serious persecution of the 
church. The court did not venture to enforce its order 
beyond a single Sunday ; on the following Lord's Day the 
doors were found open, and there was no further inter- 
ference with the worship of the church. Before 167 1, 
while the persecution was at its height, twenty-two 
(including eight women) had united with the church. 
After persecution ceased the growth was naturally still 
more rapid. Much indignation had been caused, both in 



BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 301 

the colony itself and in England, by the Puritan persecu- 
tions of Baptists and Quakers — the latter suffering even 
more than Baptists, some even to death — and there was 
great danger that the charter would be lost. This, in 
fact, befell a few years later. The Puritan theory had 
broken down — a theocracy had been proved an impossible 
form of government in New England. In 1691 a new 
charter was given by William and Mary; Plymouth and 
Massachusetts Bay were consolidated into the one col- 
ony of Massachusetts, and the charter assured " liberty 
of conscience to all Christians, except Papists." Baptists 
were henceforth exempt from persecution, but not from 
taxation to support a State church. 

For a long time the growth of Baptists in New Eng- 
land continued to be slow. The next church to be es- 
tablished was that at Kittery, Me., the Province of Maine 
then being part of the Massachusetts colony. Two set- 
tlers at that place, William Screven and Humphrey 
Churchwood, came to hold Baptist views, made their way 
to Boston, and were baptized into the fellowship of the 
church on June 21, 1681. Mr. Screven was licensed to 
preach, and on his return to Kittery, organized a church. 
He was imprisoned and fined ten pounds by the provin- 
cial authorities for pronouncing infant baptism " no or- 
dinance of God, but an invention of men." Finding that 
there was no prospect of their being permitted to serve 
God in peace, the little church of seventeen made prep- 
arations for removal. They settled near the site of the 
present city of Charleston, S. C, and reorganizing in 
1684, established the First Baptist Church of that town. 
Not for more than fourscore years was another attempt 
made to plant a Baptist church in Maine. 

Aside from a church formed among the Indians at 
Chilmark, in Martha's Vineyard (1693), these were the 
only Calvinistic Baptist churches formed in New Eng- 



302 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

land during the seventeenth century. 1 There were, how- 
ever, two churches of the Arminian or Six-principle 
order in Rhode Island — the North Kingston (1665), an d 
the Tiverton (1685). There was also a Seventh-day 
church in Newport that had been founded in 1671. In 
all, therefore, there were ten small churches, with prob- 
ably not more than three hundred members, in the year 
1700. 

The only direction in which any considerable progress 
was made for about half a century was in Connecticut. 
There some Baptists, probably removed from Rhode 
Island, were found early in the eighteenth century, and a 
church was organized in 1705, at Groton, of which Val- 
entine Wightman became the pastor. This was a Six- 
principle church. But the churches formed at New Lon- 
don (1710), Wallingford (1731), Southington (1738), 
and North Stonington (1743) were either Calvinistic 
churches from the beginning or soon became such. 2 

This slow progress is by no means surprising. The 
atmosphere of New England was not favorable to spirit- 
ual vigor in the first half of the eighteenth century, and 
the policy pursued toward Baptists there had prevented 
immigrants of that faith from turning their faces in that 
direction. 

In the Middle States the conditions of growth were, 
on the whole, more favorable. The only persecution ex- 
perienced was in the colony of New York, and that was 
for a brief time under the governorship of Peter Stuy- 
vesant. Misled by the liberal promises of the Dutch 
West India Company a number of Baptists had settled on 

1 There were but eight, all told, in Massachusetts at the beginning of the 
Great Awakening (1740). 

2 How Connecticut felt toward Baptists may be seen from this early 
statute: " Nor shall any persons neglect the public worship of God in 
some lawful Congregation, and form themselves into separate companies in 
private Houses, on Penalty of Ten Shillings for every such Offense each 
person shall be guilty of." (" Colony Law Book," p. 139.) 



BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 3O3 

Long Island, in what are now Gravesend and Flushing. 
One of the most prominent was John Bowne, who had 
come to this country from England in 1635, first settling 
at Salem, Mass. He may not have been a Baptist at 
this time, but he was a dissenter both from the Church of 
England and the Established Church of Massachusetts. 
He offended the Dutch authorities by his tenderness 
towards the " abominable people called Quakers," who 
were then being punished in New Amsterdam with little 
less severity than was shown in New England. Bowne 
was arrested and fined for giving aid and shelter to these 
people, and on his refusal to pay his fine, he was banished 
and sent by ship to Holland. 

He at once appealed to the directors of the company, 
and they promptly condemned their agent. The Dutch 
were too hearty lovers of religious liberty, and had ex- 
perienced too much of the horrors of the Inquisition, to 
play for any length of time the role of persecutors. The 
choleric and tyrannical Peter soon received orders from 
Holland : " Let every man remain free, so long as he is 
modest, moderate, his political conduct irreproachable, 
and so long as he does not offend others or oppose the 
government." But before the policy could be thus changed, 
Baptists had suffered considerably, and later under the 
English rule the same difficulty was experienced. The 
first Baptist minister to labor in New York City, so far 
as is known, was Rev. William Wickendon, of Provi- 
dence, in 1656 ; and for these labors he was heavily fined, 
but after an imprisonment of some months, being too poor 
to pay the fine, he was released and banished from the 
colony. Whether he had succeeded in gathering a church 
is uncertain, but if he did, it was soon scattered by per- 
secution, for an ordinance of 1662 imposed a severe fine 
on anybody who should even be present at an illegal 
conventicle. 



304 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The next trace of Baptists in this colony is at Oyster 
Bay, L. L, where one William Rhodes, a Baptist minister 
from Rhode Island, began to preach and baptize con- 
verts about 1700. By 1724 a church had been organized, 
and Robert Feeks was ordained pastor. Before this, 
however, a Baptist church had been organized in New 
York, where Rev. Valentine Wightman began to preach 
about 1.711. One of his converts was Nicholas Eyres, a 
wealthy brewer, in whose house the meetings were held. 
He was baptized in 1714, a church was formed, and Eyres 
soon became its pastor, at the same time continuing in 
business. In spite of some persecutions and many dis- 
couragements, they continued to flourish until internal 
dissensions wrecked them, and not long after 1730 the 
church became extinct. 

The most important and influential of the early Baptist 
centers was the group of churches in the vicinity of 
Philadelphia. In 1684 Thomas Dungan gathered a 
church at Cold Spring, Pa., but it became extinct about 
1702. In 1688 the church at Pennepeck (Lower Dublin) 
was organized. This church, of twelve members at the 
beginning, had as its first pastor Elias Keach, son of the 
well-known Baptist minister of London, Benjamin Keach. 
The First Church of Philadelphia was founded in the 
following year, but its members were connected wkh 
the Lower Dublin Church until 1746, when they were 
formally constituted a separate and independent church. 
The Welsh Tract Church was constituted in 1701. 

The liberal offers of complete religious liberty in New 
Jersey drew Baptists to that colony as early as 1660. 
The first church organized was that at Middletown in 
1688, composed mainly of those who had fled from per- 
secution in New York and other colonies. Piscataway 
(1689), Cohansey (1690), Cape May (1712), and Hope- 
well (1715), were the next to follow. Congregations 



BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 305 

were also gathered at Salem, Burlington, Scotch Plains, 
and other places, that in later years were constituted 
separate churches. 

The nucleus of each of these churches, so far as their 
history is known, appears to have been a few men and 
women who had been Baptists before coming to this 
country. Others had held Baptist beliefs for some 
years, but had never before connected themselves with 
a Baptist church, possibly for lack of opportunity in 
their old homes. The major part of these people were 
English; in and about Philadelphia there were many 
Welsh Baptists; a few came from Ireland. The affilia- 
tions of American Baptists are thus directly with our 
brethren of Great Britain. It is the fashion in some 
quarters to call the church founded by Roger Williams 
" the venerable mother of American Baptist churches." 
She is then that anomaly in the world, a mother who 
never bore children, for no church now existing can be 
shown to have been established by her labors prior to 
1800, if thereafter. The part played by Roger Williams 
and his church in the history of American Baptists is 
ludicrously small, when the facts are compared to the 
ink that has been shed on the subject. 

All these churches last described were in intimate fel- 
lowship, the Philadelphia group being by common con- 
sent the center of interest. For their mutual convenience 
and edification, almost from their origin, a custom grew 
up of holding " general meetings " from time to time for 
the ministry of the word and the gospel ordinances. 
From being held once a year, these meetings came to be 
semi-annual, in the months of May and September. 
These were for many years what their name implied — 
general meetings — being attended by as many as could 
make it convenient, and were wholly devotional and 
evangelistic. In 1707 the meeting was for the first time 
u 



306 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

a delegated body, five churches appointing delegates, and 
this is the beginning of the Philadelphia Association. 
From the first the New Jersey churches were members, 
and as the body increased in age and strength it at- 
tracted to itself all the Baptist churches within traveling 
distance of it, having as members churches in southern 
New York and Virginia. Its adoption of a strongly Cal- 
vinistic Confession in 1742 (or possibly earlier) was a 
turning-point in the history of American Baptists, as it 
ensured the prevalence of that type of theology. Up to 
this time the Arminian Baptists had been the stronger 
in New England, and the colonies of New York and 
New Jersey, and it was at one time probable that they 
would control the development of the denomination. It 
was the Philadelphia Association that turned the tide, and 
decided the course of American Baptist history. The 
Association speedily became the leading body among 
American Baptists — a position it has not wholly lost to 
this day. Pretty much everything good in our history, 
from 1700 to 1850, may be traced to its initiative or active 
co-operation. 

During this early period little progress was made in 
the founding of Baptist churches in the South. The 
story of the origin of the First Church of Charleston 
has already been told. In 1733 a schism in this church 
caused the organization of a General Baptist church — 
the original body being Calvinistic — and in 1736 a church 
was formed at Ashley River, which, while a symptom of 
growth, still further depleted the strength of the mother 
church. In 1737 some members of the Welsh Tract 
church went southward and established the Welsh Neck 
church. Here, then, was a promising little group of 
churches in one Southern colony. 

The only other region where promise of growth had 
been manifest was in Virginia. There were probably 



BAPTISTS IN THE COLONIES 307 

some Baptists, certainly some people opposed to the bap- 
tism of infants, early in the history of the colony, for 
as early as 1661 the Assembly provided that a fine of 
two thousand pounds of tobacco should be imposed on 
parents who refused to have their children baptized. 
By 1714 there had come to be a number of this persua- 
sion in the southeastern part of the State, probably Eng- 
lish immigrants and probably General Baptists in their 
old home, since they appealed to this body in England 
for help. Two ministers were sent out to them from 
England, one of whom lived to reach the colony and 
founded a church at Burleigh. Another church is known 
to have existed before 1729 in Surrey County. 

In the neighboring colony of North Carolina, a church 
was formed by Rev. Paul Palmer in 1727, consisting of 
thirty-two members, at a place called Perquimans, in 
Chowan County. 

In all, therefore, there were forty-seven Baptist 
churches, of which we have certain knowledge, before 
the Great Awakening, of which all but seven were north 
of Mason and Dixon's line. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 

DURING the first century of their history, American 
Baptists did not escape the effect of that spirit 
of worldliness which nearly paralyzed the churches of 
the Standing Order. They were firm in adherence to 
the true scriptural principle that the church should be 
composed of the regenerate only, but they lived in com- 
munities where it was hard even to get a hearing for 
this idea. The New England community was a the- 
ocracy, and the privileges of citizenship were enjoyed 
only by those who were members of the church. The 
theory of imperium and sacerdotium was not more firmly 
insisted on, and not half so consistently followed, in 
the relations between the medieval Church and the Holy 
Roman Empire, as in the connection of Church and 
State in New England. They were like the obverse and 
reverse of a coin, two aspects of one indivisible entity. 
The certain result of such a polity in modern Christianity, 
as in ancient Judaism, must be to corrupt the spiritual 
body — to destroy all distinction between regenerate and 
unregenerate. 

The adoption of the Half-way Covenant, in 1662, was 
at once the natural result and an aggravation of the 
state of things that had come to pass. This covenant 
provided that those baptized in infancy were to be re- 
garded as members of the church to which their parents 
belonged, although not to be admitted to the communion 
without evidence of regeneration. Such persons were 
allowed to offer their children for baptism, provided they 
308 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 309 

publicly professed assent to the doctrine of faith, and 
were not scandalous in life. It was not long before min- 
isters declared that sanctification was not a qualification 
for the Lord's Supper, but saw in it a converting ordi- 
nance and a means of regeneration. Consequently, per- 
sons who had been baptized in infancy, and were not 
charged with scandalous conduct or heresy, were 
regarded as entitled to full communion with the church. 

Against this worldly condition of the church a reac- 
tion was certain to come. It manifested itself in the Great 
Awakening that began at Northampton, in 1734, under 
the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, and gradually ex- 
tended throughout the towns of Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut. The visit of Whitefield to this country, in 1739, 
gave a new impulse to this revival of true religion, ex- 
tending it far beyond the bounds of New England. With 
this second revival began a new era in the spiritual life 
of American Christians. The leaven did not spread 
without opposition, and among Baptists two parties were 
formed — the " Regulars," who adhered to the old ways 
and disparaged revivals, and the " New Lights," or 
" Separates," who adopted the methods of Whitefield. 
The literature of the times is full of this controversy, and 
shows that the newer and more scriptural method of 
preaching did not win its way to its present general 
acceptance without bitter opposition. 

Nevertheless, from this time the growth of Baptists 
became rapid. In Massachusetts, for example, there had 
been only eight Baptist churches organized before the 
Great Awakening; between 1740 and 1775, when the war 
of the Revolution began, twenty-seven new churches had 
been formed, and in 1784 the total number had increased 
to seventy-three, with a membership of three thousand 
and seventy-three. Extension to the regions beyond was 
also begun. 



3IO A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The most active agent in this new advance was Heze- 
kiah Smith. He was born on Long Island, in the town 
of Hempstead, in 1737, but while he was still young his 
parents removed to Morris County, N. J. Rev. John 
Gano, at that time pastor of the church at Morristown, 
preached at several stations near-by, and relates the fol- 
lowing : "At one of these places there was a happy instance 
of a promising youth (by name Hezekiah Smith), who 
professed to be converted, and joined the church — who 
appeared to have an inclination for education, to which 
his parents objected. His eldest brother joined me in 
soliciting his father, who finally consented to his receiv- 
ing an education." Young Smith became a pupil at the 
Hopewell Academy, the first educational institution es- 
tablished among American Baptists, of which Rev. Isaac 
Eaton was principal. He then went to Princeton 
College, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1762. 

Directly after graduation he made an evangelistic tour 
through the Southern States — possibly with something 
of a young man's desire to see the world, but still more 
to try and improve his gifts in preaching. During this 
fifteen months he traveled on horseback four thousand 
two hundred and thirty-five miles, and preached one 
hundred and seventy-three sermons. It must be admitted 
that he was not idly traveling for pleasure. He returned 
North to find that the Philadelphia Association had re- 
solved to found an institution of higher learning; and 
had selected Rhode Island as the most eligible location 
for a college, and James Manning, Smith's classmate at 
Princeton, as the head of the new institution. Smith 
threw himself into this project with all the enthusiasm 
and energy of his nature, and he was energetic and en- 
thusiastic beyond most men, while cool-headed and ju- 
dicious at the same time. He was successful in winning 
the support of many who might otherwise have held 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 311 

aloof, and was at all times the right-hand man of 
President Manning in his laborious and difficult task. 

Smith had been ordained to the ministry at Charles- 
ton, during his Southern tour, but had accepted no pas- 
toral charge there, and for some years he held none in 
the North. He rather itinerated among the churches of 
New England, preaching with much acceptance wherever 
he went. During his journeys he visited the town of 
Haverhill, Mass., and the pulpit of the Congregational 
church being vacant, he was asked to preach. He re- 
mained some weeks, and the people would gladly have 
had him for their pastor, but he was too stanch a Bap- 
tist for that. After he left, he was solicited to return by 
people in the town, and when he did so a Baptist church 
was organized, of which he was recognized as pastor 
in 1766. It was the only pastorate of his life, and at 
his death, in 1805, the church had become one of the 
strongest in New England, and is now the oldest 
surviving Baptist church north of Boston. 

He was more than the faithful pastor of this church; 
he was a missionary to the regions beyond. At that time 
there was a great religious destitution in the newer towns 
of New Hampshire and Maine, and the few Baptists scat- 
tered here and there were as sheep without a shepherd. 
Up to the outbreak of the Revolution, Mr. Smith made 
many horseback tours through these regions, preaching 
the gospel and gathering converts ; and it is said that at 
least thirteen of the churches organized in those States 
owed their existence to his labors and counsels. In his 
later years, as well as his strength permitted, he was 
equally earnest and effective as an evangelist. At this 
time there were no missionary organizations among Bap- 
tists, and what evangelizing was done was carried on in 
this independent way. Hezekiah Smith was a whole 
State mission society in himself, and doubtless his labors 



312 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

had no little to do with the organizing of the first society 
of that kind, the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary So- 
ciety. He was one of the most active agents in forming 
this organization two years before his death. 

We have still to consider one of the most honorable 
episodes in Mr. Smith's history. On the outbreak of 
the Revolution, he offered his services and was appointed 
brigade-chaplain, with the pay and rations of a colonel. 
Six of the twenty-one brigade-chaplains in the service 
are known to have been Baptists ; and we have it on the 
authority of Washington himself that Baptists were 
" throughout America, uniformly and almost unani- 
mously, the firm friends to civil liberty, and the perse- 
vering promoters of our glorious Revolution." Mr. 
Smith was in service with the army of Gates during the 
Burgoyne campaign, and was afterward stationed at 
various points along the Hudson with the army of Wash- 
ington. He gained the confidence and esteem of his gen- 
eral, as is abundantly shown by the fact that Washington 
corresponded with him after the war. He was not a 
fighting chaplain, but he repeatedly exposed his life in 
order to give help and consolation to the wounded and 
dying. His service in keeping up the morale of the army 
was equal to that of any officer, and was so esteemed 
by all military authorities. 

Returning to Haverhill and resuming his pastoral du- 
ties, revivals followed in the community that increased 
the membership of the church to nearly two hundred. 
There were then but three larger churches in New Eng- 
land. No preacher was in more demand for services of 
all kinds, and none was more influential in denominational 
councils. Mr. Smith took a leading part in the organi- 
zation of the Warren Association, the first union of Bap- 
tist churches in New England, in the rehabilitation of 
the Rhode Island College (soon to be known as Brown 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 313 

University), and all other denominational enterprises. He 
was cut off by paralysis in the midst of his usefulness, 
having preached with unusual power on the preceding 
Sunday, leaving behind him the memory of a man who 
had been faithful in all things, stainless in character, and 
foremost in all good works. 

Though there had been churches formed earlier in 
New Hampshire (Newton, in 1750, and Medbury, in 
1768), they had proved short-lived, and Hezekiah Smith 
established the first enduring organization in 1771 at 
Brentwood. Other churches sprang up rapidly, and by 
1784 there were twenty-five churches and four hun- 
dred and seventy-six members. The church at Ber- 
wick, Me., was organized in July, 1768, of members 
whom Mr. Smith had baptized into the fellowship of 
his church at Haverhill, and who had been dismissed to 
form the new body. 

The earliest churches in Vermont seem to have owed 
their origin in part to people from the other New Eng- 
land colonies, and in part to people from New York. 
The oldest church now existing is Wallingford, formed 
February 10, 1780. An older church, the Shaftesbury 
(1768), was disbanded in 1844. By the close of the cen- 
tury there were thirty-two churches and the membership 
had reached one thousand six hundred. In 1784, the 
entire strength of New England Baptists was one hun- 
dred and fifty-one churches and four thousand seven 
hundred and eighty-three members. Of course, these 
figures are only approximate, though as to the number 
of churches they are probably very nearly accurate. 

The Revolution interrupted for a time the rapid prog- 
ress that Baptists began to make after the Great Awaken- 
ing. The results were most disastrous, as might be 
expected, where the British occupation was longest — in 
and about New York and Philadelphia, and through 



314 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

" the Jerseys." The Baptists as a whole were patriots, 
and many of their preachers served as chaplains with 
the American troops, as the work in their churches could 
not be carried on with regularity. There was, however, 
one noted exception : Scholarly, laborious, warm-hearted, 
eccentric, choleric Morgan Edwards, one of the most in- 
teresting of the early Baptist ministers of our country 
and one of those most deserving of honor. His very 
faults had a leaning toward virtue's side, and in good 
works he was exceeded by none of his day, if indeed 
by any of any day. 

Edwards was born in Wales in 1722, and received his 
training for the ministry at the Baptist college at Bristol, 
England, after which he began to preach at Boston, 
Lincolnshire. Seven years he ministered to a little flock 
there, and then went to Cork, Ireland, where he was or- 
dained in 1757. He remained there nine years, and then 
returned to England. While preaching there the Baptist 
church in Philadelphia sent to their English brethren a 
request for a pastor. By advice of his brethren, Morgan 
Edwards responded to this appeal, made the voyage to 
America, visited the Philadelphia church, and became its 
pastor for nine years (1761-1770). He was an able 
preacher and a good man, but not always an easy man 
to get on with. He had a trait characteristic of Welsh 
people (and some others), which they call firmness and 
others sometimes call obstinacy, and at various stages 
of his career this trait got him into trouble with people 
who were also " firm." 

Before he had been in the country much more than 
a year, Morgan Edwards induced the Philadelphia As- 
sociation to do one of the things that most honor its 
history. Mention has already been made of the found- 
ing of Rhode Island College and the work of Manning 
and Smith in connection with that enterprise. The 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 315 

pioneer in the movement was Edwards. He saw at once 
on his arrival that the weakness of American Baptists 
was their deficiency in educational advantages. They 
would not have been reduced to send to England for 
him if they had had schools of their own. Others 
agreed with him ; and when he proposed the founding of 
a college, at the meeting of the Philadelphia Association 
in 1762, his resolution was carried without difficulty. He 
took hold of the project with his usual ardor, and the 
success of the project was no less due to him than to 
Manning and Smith. He was most influential of the 
three in enlisting the sympathies of Baptists generally 
in favor of the college and obtaining funds for its endow- 
ment. He made a voyage to England for the purpose 
and brought back a large sum of money. He interested 
his Welsh Baptist brethren especially, and one of them, 
Doctor Richards, bequeathed to the college his library of 
one thousand three hundred volumes. Brown University 
has to-day, in consequence, probably the finest collection 
of books in the Welsh language to be found in America. 
Moreover, Edwards traveled all over the States, through 
many years, preaching and collecting for the college. 

These labors were interrupted by the war of the Revo- 
lution, and thereby hangs a tale that is to us amusing 
but was most vexatious to his contemporaries. You have 
to get at some distance from things sometimes to see 
their funny side, and this is one of those cases. Edwards, 
it will be remembered, had not been " caught young " ; 
he was nearly forty when he came to this country, and 
the troubles that led to the Revolution were already 
begun. He had not been here long enough to be really 
Americanized when Lexington and Bunker Hill gave the 
signal for a general rebellion against King George and 
his tyranny, and his sympathies were naturally with the 
country and flag of his birth rather than with the land 



3l6 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of his late adoption. He was almost, if not quite, the 
only Tory among the Baptist clergy during the Revolu- 
tion, and so found himself isolated among his brethren. 
Not only so, but as he did not hesitate to express his 
sentiments with his usual freedom and vigor, he soon 
found himself the object of suspicion, not to say hostility. 
Finally his brethren in the ministry took the matter up 
with vigor on their side, and others joined them; and 
Edwards was finally persuaded or intimidated into sign- 
ing a " retraction," in which he admitted that he had 
spoken unadvisedly, asked the forgiveness of the public, 
and promised to avoid like offense in future. The prom- 
ise is said to have been ill kept, however; the Welsh fire 
would break out from time to time in spite of all promises 
or efforts to repress it. 

Such loyalty to king and country did honor to the 
heart, if not to the head, of Edwards; and after the in- 
dependence of the colonies was achieved, he seems to 
have seen a great light and became as loyal to the new 
country as he had been to the old. He then resumed 
his journeyings and labors, continuing them until his 
death in 1795. 

These journeyings had another object besides preach- 
ing the gospel and collecting funds for Rhode Island 
College. Edwards was a born antiquarian, and soon 
after coming to this country began to collect memorials 
of the past, especially facts relating to Baptist history. 
In his goings up and down the land — he visited pretty 
nearly every one of the thirteen colonies — he made re- 
searches among contemporary records and gathered up 
facts from living men who recollected Baptist beginnings, 
and little by little collected his Materials toward a History 
of the Baptists. Two volumes were printed during his 
lifetime, and slight portions have been printed since; but 
a large part still remains in MS, 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 3 17 

The first Calvinistic Baptist church in the colony of 
New York was formed about 1740, at Fishkill, Dutchess 
County, and from 1753 a small company of Baptists held 
meetings in a private house. Not strong- enough to 
form a church, they became members of the church at 
Scotch Plains, N. J., and were not constituted a separate 
church until 1762. By this time they had become twenty- 
seven in number, had built themselves a small house of 
worship in Gold Street, and had called the Rev. John 
Gano to be their pastor. Other churches were formed 
in the Dutchess region and its vicinity, to the number of 
ten in all, prior to 1780. From this time onward prog- 
ress was quite rapid in the eastern and central counties 
of the State. For a time most of these churches sought 
and obtained membership in the Philadelphia Association, 
and it was not until 1 791 that they felt themselves strong 
enough to form an Association of their own. 

In the Southern colonies, while progress was greatly 
interrupted by the Revolution, there was less actual dis- 
integration of the churches, since most of these were in 
more rural communities and were less affected by the 
fortunes of war. After the conclusion of peace, more- 
over, the most rapid growth of Baptists was in this 
region. Along the Atlantic coast as far as Charleston, 
many Baptist churches were founded by missionaries of 
the Philadelphia Association, and were for a time mem- 
bers of that body. Four churches thus constituted — 
Opekon (1743, reconstituted in 1752), Ketokton (1751), 
Smith's Creek (1756), Broad Run (1762) — formed the 
Ketokton Association in 1766, with the full approval of 
the mother body. A year earlier the Kehukee Associa- 
tion had been organized by several General Baptist 
churches in Virginia and North Carolina, but they soon 
adopted a modified form of the Calvinistic faith. 

In 1754 a company of settlers from New England 



318 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

settled in Virginia and began to propagate their views 
with vigor and great success. They were " New Lights," 
or adherents of Whitefield and his evangelistic methods. 
Prominent among them were two preachers of unusual 
gifts, Shubael Stearns and Daniel Marshall. The churches 
founded by them became known as Separate Baptists, 
and they grew like Jonah's gourd. The earliest of all, 
the Sandy Creek Church, in seventeen years was instru- 
mental in establishing forty-two others, from which one T 
hundred and twenty-five preachers were sent forth. • 
Others were only less prolific ; no wonder then that Bap- 
tists increased greatly in the Southern States. Their 
growth was much promoted by the healing of their di- 
visions in 1787, Regulars and Separates uniting, on the 
basis of the Philadelphia Confession, to form " the 
United Baptist Churches of Christ in Virginia." 

We can no longer trace the history of churches; we 
can only mark the progress of the body now by the 
formation of new groups of churches into Associations; 
and soon these too became too numerous to be followed 
in detail. The Philadelphia, as we have seen, is the 
venerable mother of all such bodies, but her first four 
daughters were born in the South — the Charleston 
(1751), Sandy Creek (1758), Kehukee (1765), and Ke- 
tokton (1766). 1 The New England Associations began 
with the Warren (1767), followed by the Stonington m 
(1772), and Shaftesbury (1780). The formation of As- 
sociations went rapidly on, until by 1800 there were forty-* 
eight, of which thirty were in the Southern States, and 
eight beyond the Alleghenies — six of these last being in 
Kentucky. 2 

1 This is leaving out of account a " yearly meeting " of the Arminian 
Baptists of New England, begun previous to 1729, and afterwards 
developing into an Association. 

2 At the beginning of the Revolution American Baptists numbered less 
than 10,000, but even approximate figures are lacking. In 1792, according 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 319 

If the figures given below are substantially accurate, 
and for good reasons they are believed to be, the period 
of greatest actual and relative advance among American 
Baptists was the last quarter of the eighteenth century. 
Several causes contributed to this result, chief among 
them being the granting of religious liberty in all the 
States, the missionary activity of the pioneer preachers, 
and the harmony between the democratic spirit of the 
people and the congregational polity of the Baptist 
churches. Though subsequent growth has not reached 
these unexampled figures, it has continually exceeded the 
rate at which population increases, and that in spite of 
the immense influx of foreign peoples, on many of whom 
Baptists have not yet succeeded in making any perceptible 
impression. 

With the attainment of civil liberty came a spirit that 
made men see in religious persecution the tyranny and 
shame that it was. Virginia led the way, as became the 
colony that first made persecuting laws, and had equaled 
all others in the bitterness of her intolerance, if indeed she 
had not surpassed all. In 1629 the Assembly forbade 
any minister lacking Episcopal ordination to officiate in 
the colony, and this rule was enforced by severe pen- 
alties up to the Revolution. Baptists were also taxed 
for the support of the Episcopal Church and their prop- 
erty was seized and sold to pay such taxes. At length, 
however, they found champions in such men as Thomas 
Jefferson and Patrick Henry; the latter, though a mem- 
ber of the Established Church, being too genuine a lover 
of liberty to have any part in persecution. The first 



to Dr. Rufus Babcock, there were 471 churches, 424 ministers, and 35,101 
members. By 1800 they had increased to an estimated number of 100,000. 
In 1850 the numbers had risen to 815,212, of whom 686,807 were "Regu- 
lar " Baptists. In other words, in 1776 Baptists were about 1 to 264 of 
the population; in 1800 they were 1 to 53, and in 1850 they had become 
1 in 29. 






320 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

patriot legislature, which met in 1776, repealed the penal 
laws, and taxes for the support of the clergy were re- 
pealed in 1779. It was not until January, 1786, that the 
legislature passed an " Act for establishing religious free- 
dom," drawn by Jefferson and powerfully advocated by 
James Madison. 

The other States more or less rapidly followed the 
lead of Virginia. The spirit of intolerance lingered long- 
est in New England, and it was not until 1833 that the 
last remnant of proscriptive laws was swept from the 
statute book of Massachusetts. And even so good and 
wise and great a man as Lyman Beecher thought the 
bottom had dropped out of things when his State (Con- 
necticut) no longer compelled his unwilling Baptist 
neighbor to contribute to his support. 

The disabilities removed, the Baptist churches grew 
apace. The secret of this growth was incessant evan- 
gelization. There were no missionary societies, national, 
State, or even local. Some of the Associations did a 
work of this kind. Thus, soon after the organization of 
the South Carolina Association, they sent North for a 
missionary preacher, and secured the Rev. John Gano. 
afterward pastor of the First Baptist Church of New 
York, and a man of note in his day. His labors in the 
interior of the State resulted in the establishment of sev- 
eral churches and the organization of the Congaree As- 
sociation. But for the most part this evangelization 
was the work of men who were not sent forth, but went 
forth to preach in obedience to a. divine call. Many Bap- 
tist preachers spent at least a part of their lives, if not 
the whole of them, as itinerant preachers; and to their 
labors was due the growth of Baptist churches in the 
closing quarter of the eighteenth century. 

As the population extended over the Alleghenies into 
the new regions of the great West, the missionary zeal 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 321 

of the churches kept step with the colonizing enterprise 
of the people. Without societies or other means of or- 
ganizing their scanty resources of men and money, they 
pushed out boldly into the regions beyond. Many Bap- 
tists from North Carolina and Virginia were among the 
first settlers of Kentucky and Tennessee, and in the lat- 
ter State their churches were organized as early as 1765. 
By 1790 there were eighteen churches and eight hundred 
and eighty-nine members in the State. In 1782, Baptist 
churches were formed in Kentucky; and in 1790 there 
were forty-two churches and three thousand and ninety- 
five members. Baptists were among the first to enter 
Ohio as settlers and religious workers, a church having 
been organized at Columbia (five miles above Cincinnati) 
in 1790, 1 and the Miami Association being formed by 
four churches in 1797. In Illinois, Baptists from Virginia 
were the first Protestants to enter and possess the land, 
a number settling there not later than 1786. In the fol- 
lowing year a Kentucky pastor preached there, but the 
first church was not formed until May, 1796, at New 
Design, St. Clair County. The first sermon on the site 
of what is now the great city of Chicago was preached 
October 5, 1825, by the Rev. Isaac McCoy, then a Baptist 
missionary to the Indians of Michigan. 

Many men of God went forth into this wilderness not 
knowing where they should find a night's lodging or their 
next meal, willing to suffer untold privations if they 
might only point some to the Lamb of God. It is im- 
possible to estimate too highly or to praise too warmly 
the services of these men of strong faith and good works. 
Their hardships were such as we of the present day can 
hardly imagine. They traveled from little settlement to 
settlement on horseback, with no road save an Indian 

1 This church changed its place of worship in 1808, and was thenceforth 
known as the Duck Creek Church. 



322 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

trail or blazed trees, fording streams over which no 
bridges had been built, exposed to storms, frequently 
sleeping where night found them, often prostrated by 
fevers or wasted by malaria, but indomitable still. If 
they did not wander " in sheepskins and goatskins," like 
ancient heroes of faith, they wore deerskins; and home 
spun took the place of sackcloth. Their dwelling was 
" all out o' doors." Living in the plainest manner, shar- 
ing all the hardships of a pioneer people, the circuit 
preacher labored in a parish that, as one of them said, 
" took in one-half of creation, for it had no boundary 
on the west." One of them writes in 1805 : " Every day 
I travel I have to swim through creeks or swamps, and 
I am wet from head to feet, and some days from morn- 
ing to night I am dripping with water. . . I have rheu- 
matism in all my joints. . . What I have suffered in 
body and mind my pen is not able to communicate to 
you. But this I can say : While my body is wet with 
water and chilled with cold my soul is filled with heavenly 
fire, and I can say with St. Paul : ' But none of these 
things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, 
so that I might finish my course with joy.' ,: 

In general, the preacher was kindly received, often 
with tears of joy. The people who were running a neck- 
and-neck race with death by starvation or freezing had 
not much to give the itinerant minister. Even to offer 
him food and shelter meant sacrifice, but in nearly every 
case he was welcome to his share of whatever comforts 
the pioneer family possessed. In the wilderness, like 
Paul, he passed through perils many — perils by the way, 
perils from savage beasts, perils from the savage In- 
dians, perils from godless and degraded men hardly less 
savage than either beast or Indian. But God, who closed 
the mouths of the lions, was with his servant, the pioneer 
preacher. Many died prematurely of privation and dis- 



! 




John M. Peck 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 323 

ease in this hard life, but there is no record of one who 
died of violence. 

The houses of worship in which these preachers held 
their services were generally God's own temples — the 
woods and prairies. Their libraries consisted of a Bible 
and a hymn-book, carried in their saddle-bags. They 
did not read polished essays from a manuscript, as their 
degenerate successors so often do. The rough back- 
woodsman had no use, as he phrased it, " for a preacher 
who couldn't shoot without a rest." The preaching was 
of a rough-and-ready sort, not always scrupulous of the 
king's English, strongly tinged with the good, old 
doctrines of grace — eminently evangelistic, to use our 
modern phrase, and was richly blessed of God to the con- 
version of their hearers. These men, uncouth as they 
would seem now, unwelcome as they would be to the 
pulpit of any fashionable Baptist church in our cities, 
led multitudes to the cross of Christ, founded churches 
in all the new communities of the West, laid the founda- 
tions of denominational institutions, on which a magnifi- 
cent superstructure has since been built. Let us honor 
as he deserves the pioneer preacher of the West. We 
who have entered into the labors of such men are noble 
indeed if we are worthy to unloose the latchet of their 
shoes. Time would fail to tell of such men as Ebenezer 
Loomis, the Michigan evangelist; of James Delaney, the 
Wisconsin pioneer; of Amory Gale, who preached over 
one hundred thousand miles of Minnesota ; of " Father " 
Taggart, of Nebraska; and of scores of others equally 
worthy of undying honor. Their record is on high; 
their names are written in the book of God's remem- 
brance. " And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of 
hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels." 

But a still greater opportunity was before American 
Baptists. When Thomas Jefferson became president, in 



324 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

1 80 1, the United States included an area of eight hun- 
dred and twenty-seven thousand eight hundred and forty- 
four square miles, all to the east of the Mississippi River. 
In 1803, Jefferson, with noble inconsistency setting aside 
all his past record as a strict constructionist of the Con- 
stitution, bought from France for fifteen million dollars 
a strip of territory that more than doubled the area of 
his country. This Louisiana purchase, as it was called, 
added to the national domain one million one hundred 
and seventy-one thousand nine hundred and thirty-one 
square miles. From this territory were afterward formed 
the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kan- 
sas, Nebraska, Wyoming, the two Dakotas, Montana, 
the Indian Territory, and Oklahoma, besides a con- 
siderable part of the States of Minnesota and Colorado. 

Settlement of this new region necessarily proceeded 
very slowly for some time. The Indians were hostile and 
threatening on the north, and the possession of the south- 
ern part was menaced by the British. The energies of 
the country were too much absorbed by the war of 1812, 
the struggle to preserve the independence so hard won 
in the Revolution, to have much surplus energy for col- 
onization. At the battle of Tippecanoe, in 181 1, General 
Harrison broke the power of the Indians, who were never 
formidable again east of the Mississippi ; while " Old 
Hickory," by his defeat of the British at New Orleans in 
1 81 5, forever assured the integrity of our possessions 
against any foreign attack. Peace soon came to crown 
these victories, and then the great westward movement 
of population began. In a half-century the face of this 
continent was transformed as no similar expanse on the 
earth's surface was ever transformed in so short a time. 

The unsystematic system that had been so undoubtedly 
effective for a time was outgrown ; something else must 
be devised. Highly privileged is the man who becomes 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 325 

an agent of God's providence in the founding of a great 
and beneficent institution. There were many men who 
had an honorable part in the founding of the American 
Baptist Home Mission Society ; but if one must be chosen 
from them who was preeminent, that one can be no other 
than John M. Peck. He was born in Litchfield, Conn., 
in 1789, was converted at the age of eighteen, and joined 
the Congregational church. In 1811 he removed with 
his wife to Windham, N. Y., and there a careful study 
of the Bible made him a Baptist. He was almost immedi- 
ately licensed to preach, and was ordained to the ministry 
at Catskill in 1812. 

From the first he was a missionary, his only pastorate 
being of not much over a year's duration, at Amenia, 
N. Y. Becoming acquainted with Luther Rice, when the 
latter was telling abroad the story of Judson and the 
work in India, effectually determined his bent in that 
direction; only it was home missions, not foreign, that 
appealed most strongly to him. In 181 7 the Triennial 
Convention commissioned him as a missionary to the 
region west of the Mississippi, and the rest of his life was 
spent in that work. It was a journey of one thousand two 
hundred miles to an unknown country, almost as heathen 
as Burma and far less civilized, that he and his then 
took. Let us make no mistake, John M. Peck was quite 
as heroic as Judson or Boardman. 

! From his arrival at St. Louis he became the apostle 
of the West. His labors were incredible in extent and 
variety, and though he had a constitution of iron, they 
made an old man of him by the time he was fifty. Dur- 
ing his first three years he had organized several 
churches, secured the establishment of fifty schools, in- 
troduced a system of itinerant missions, projected a col- 
lege, and undertaken part of the support of Rev. Isaac 
McCoy, missionary to the Indians. It was bad enough 



326 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

to contend with poverty, ignorance, and irreligion, but 
in Peck's case perils from false brethren were added to 
all the other perils of the wilderness. Anti-mission Bap- 
tists were strong at that time in Kentucky, and began to 
make their way into Missouri and Illinois — old high- 
and-dry Calvinists like those with whom Carey had to 
contend, who held that it was flying in the face of Divine 
Providence to plead with men to come to Jesus, and such 
new-fangled things as missionary societies were of the 
devil. To the everlasting shame of the Triennial Con- 
vention, it permitted itself to be influenced by the com- 
plaints that came to it from such sources, and in 1820, 
or soon after, all support was withdrawn from this West- 
ern enterprise. No appeals or remonstrances served to 
secure a reconsideration of the question, and Peck was 
compelled to look elsewhere for help. He could not think 
in any case of deserting the work to which God had 
called him — a work whose importance became more clear 
to him each year. 

Had it not been for this unfaithfulness to its duty on 
the part of the Triennial Convention, this disgraceful de- 
sertion of a true and tried man, the Home Mission So- 
ciety would doubtless never have been formed. Peck 
turned first to the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary 
Society, which made him its missionary at the munificent 
salary of five dollars a week — no doubt all that it had to 
give at the time. He resumed his work with fresh 
courage and was unwearied in it, traveling all over the 
States of Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri. Then he took 
a brief — not rest, but change of labor, by making a 
tour of the Eastern States to interest them in Western 
missions, returning with over one thousand dollars 
pledged for a seminary at Rock Spring, 111., which forth- 
with began, with him as professor of theology. Then 
he added to his other enterprises the publication of a 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 2> 2 7 

newspaper, The Pioneer, in 1829. No wonder that his 
health quite broke down in 1831, and he was compelled 
to rest from his labors for a time. 

Even then he was not idle — such a man could not be 
idle. He could think and plan, if he could not actively 
work. At just this time Elder Jonathan Going was sent 
West by the Massachusetts Baptists to look over the field 
and report on its needs; for three months he and Peck 
traveled over the new States of the West, and before 
they separated, so an entry in Peck's journal informs us, 
they had agreed on the plan of the American Baptist 
Home Mission Society. These two were the founders 
of that organization. For the practical execution of the 
plan, Going was the very man, and it was not more than 
six months after his return before the Society was an 
assured fact. On April 27, 1832, the new Society was 
formed in New York, where its headquarters have since 
remained. The motto selected for the Society was an 
assurance that no local interests should be permitted to 
circumscribe its sympathies or activities. 

Its first work was in the Mississippi Valley. This was 
the far West of that day; the outposts of civilization 
were just beginning to push beyond that barrier of na- 
ture. Here a great battle was to be fought. The popu- 
lation of the Louisiana purchase was almost exclusively 
Roman Catholic. We can see now that the question of 
the supremacy of this continent, for which the Protestant 
Saxon race and the Catholic French race long contended, 
was fought out and settled on the plains of Abraham, in 
1759, when Wolfe defeated Montcalm and captured the 
stronghold of Quebec. But this was not so clear at the 
time. Rome is an antagonist that does not know when 
she is beaten. She recognized, indeed, that she had re- 
ceived a severe check in the New World, but could not 
believe it a final defeat. She dreamed that in the valley 



328 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

of the Mississippi, with the great advantage she already 
had, not only all her losses might be regained, but a 
victory might be won far surpassing her apparent defeat. 
And who shall say that this was all dream? As we look 
back it seems a not unreasonable forecast, from the real- 
ization of which only a merciful Providence saved us. 
The fruits of Wolfe's victory might have been lost but 
for the fact that just at the critical hour God raised 
up such missionary and evangelizing agencies as the 
American Baptist Home Mission Society. 

During its earliest years, Elder Peck was the Home 
Mission Society in the West — its visible embodiment, its 
chief adviser, and local executive. Time and space would 
fail to tell of the variety and extent of his labors. He 
was foremost in organizing the Illinois Educational So- 
ciety, in founding and endowing Alton Seminary and 
Shurtlefr* College; the churches, educational institutions, 
societies of all kinds, that owe their life to him — their 
name is legion. And he was not merely active; he was 
wise, far-seeing, shrewd. He made few mistakes, and 
his previsions of the greatness that would come to these 
Western communities failed only in being far short of 
the reality, daring as they seemed to his contemporaries, 
The Baptist cause in the Middle West owes what it is 
to-day to the work of John M. Peck more than to any 
other score of men that can be named. 

In 1856 he died, a man worn out by his labors before 
his due time ; for though he had reached the age of sixty- 
six — a good length of years for many men — his consti- 
tution should have made him good for twenty years more. 
But if other men have lived longer, few have lived 
lives more useful or that have left greater results. If we 
adopt Napoleon's test of greatness — what has he done? — 
there has been no greater man in the history of American 
Baptists than John M. Peck. 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 329 

Into the New West of the " thirties " the new Society 
moved, at first with but slender resources, yet with a 
dauntless spirit. It became the great pioneer agency of 
the denomination. One of its first missionaries was the 
Rev. Allen B. Freeman, who in 1833 gathered the First 
Baptist Church of Chicago — the first church of the de- 
nomination to be established in what was then the North- 
west. Call the roll of the great cities of the West — 
St. Paul, Minneapolis, Omaha, Denver, Los Angeles, 
San Francisco, Portland — what would the Baptist cause 
have been in them but for this Society? In nearly all of 
these cities, not only was the first Baptist church estab- 
lished by this organization, but most of the Baptist 
churches existing in them to-day owe their birth and 
continued existence to its fostering care. Call the roll 
of our great Western commonwealths — Illinois, Wiscon- 
sin, Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, Kan- 
sas, Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Cali- 
fornia, Oregon, Washington — in every one of these this 
Society has been the pioneer agency of the denomination 
by from two to twenty years. 

In 1845 the Society began the evangelization of the far 
West by the sending of Rev. Ezra Fisher and Rev. Heze- 
kiah Johnson from Iowa to Oregon. Their hardships on 
the way were great, but they reached their destination 
safely, and the foundations of Baptist churches were speed- 
ily laid in that State. In 1848, before the discovery of 
gold in California was announced in the East, Rev. O. C. 
Wheeler was sent to San Francisco, via the Isthmus of 
Panama; and later Rev. H. W. Read was sent overland 
to the same destination; but on reaching New Mexico 
he was so impressed with the importance and destitution 
of that field that he asked and obtained the consent of 
the Board to remain there. In the other States, mission 
work was begun as fast as men and means could be found 



v 



330 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

to extend operations westward. In Kansas the Society 
had a missionary as early as 1854, and one was sent into 
Nebraska in 1856. The troublous times just before and 
during the Civil War brought this advance to a tem- 
porary standstill, but in 1864 it was again resumed, en- 
trance having been made in that year into two States 
— Dakota and Colorado. In 1870 Washington and 
Wyoming were occupied, and in 1871 Montana and Utah. 

What have been the results on the denominational 
growth? They are difficult to compute. In the year 
1832, when the Home Mission Society was organized, 
there were in its peculiar field — the West — nine hundred 
churches, a large part of them feeble and pastorless, 
since there were but six hundred ministers, and the total 
membership was but thirty-two thousand. In 1896 the 
Baptist denomination in that field, and in the farther 
West that is still more distinctively missionary territory, 
had seven thousand four hundred and seventy churches 
and five hundred and eighty-one thousand members. 

Though the work of home missions was thus first in 
point of time and in pressing necessity, it was not the 
first to be organized on a permanent basis. Long before 
this had come about, a clear providential summons had 
come to Baptists to fulfil the Great Commission, and 
preach the gospel to every creature. This was accom- 
plished through Adoniram Judson, the son of a Congre- 
gational minister of Massachusetts, who was educated 
at Brown University and Andover Theological Seminary. 
Through the influence of Judson and some other students 
at Andover, the American Board of Commissioners for 
Foreign Missions was organized; and in 1812 several 
missionaries were sent out to India, among whom were 
Adoniram Judson and his wife, Ann Hasseltine Judson. 
Their destination was Calcutta, where they knew some 
English Baptist missionaries to be laboring. It seemed 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 33 1 

probable to the Judsons that they would be called upon 
to defend their own doctrines and practice in the matter 
of baptism against these Baptists, and Mr. Judson began 
to study the question on shipboard with his usual ardor. 

The more he sought to find in the Scriptures authority 
for the baptism of infants and for sprinkling as baptism, 
the more convinced was he that neither could be found 
there. Mrs. Judson also became much troubled. After 
landing at Calcutta they sought out the English Baptist 
missionaries, and continued their study with the help of 
other books procured. Finally both were convinced that 
the Baptist position was right, that they had never been 
baptized, and that duty to Christ demanded that they 
should be baptized. Accordingly, they were immersed 
in the Baptist chapel at Calcutta by Rev. William Ward, 
September 6, 1813. Shortly after, Luther Rice, another 
appointee of the same Board, who had sailed by another 
ship, landed at Calcutta, having undergone a precisely 
similar experience. He too was baptized. The question 
then arose, what were they to do? By this act, though 
they had obeyed Christ, they had cut themselves off from 
connection with the Board that had sent them forth, and 
were strangers in a strange land, without means of future 
support. It was resolved that Mr. Rice should return to 
America, tell the Baptists there what had happened, and 
throw the new mission upon them — for of abandoning 
the work of preaching the gospel to the heathen, to which 
they felt that God had called them, the Judsons seem 
never to have thought. 

Mr. Rice reached Boston in September, 1813 and told 
his story. The Baptists of Boston and vicinity at once 
became responsible for the support of the Judsons, but 
they saw that the finger of Providence pointed to a larger 
undertaking than this. They advised Mr. Rice to visit 
the Baptist churches at large and try to interest them in 



332 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

this work. To their honor be it written, the Baptists 
of that day did not hesitate for an instant. They were 
poor and scattered, and the country was just beginning 
its second struggle for independence. No time could have 
been less propitious for the launching of a new enter- 
prise, especially one projected on so large a scale as this. 
But our fathers were men of faith and prayer and good 
works; they obeyed the voice of God and went forward. 
With great enthusiasm they responded to the appeals of 
Mr. Rice ; considering their relative poverty, the contribu- 
tions were liberal ; missionary societies sprang up all over 
the land ; the denomination for the first time had a com- 
mon cause, and became conscious of its unity and its 
power. 

The need was at once felt of some one central organi- 
zation that would unite these forces in the missionary 
cause, and after mutual counsel among the officers of 
several existing bodies, a meeting was called for the or- 
ganization of a national society. This meeting was held 
at Philadelphia in May, 1814, and resulted in the forma- 
tion of " The General Convention of the Baptist Denomi- 
nation in the United States for Foreign Missions." The 
constitution declared the object to be to direct " the 
energies of the whole denomination in one sacred effort 
for sending the glad tidings of salvation to the heathen, 
and to nations destitute of pure gospel light." From the 
circumstance of its meeting once in three years, this 
body was popularly known as the " Triennial Conven- 
tion," though that was never its official title. It con- 
tinued to be the organ of the denomination for its foreign 
work until 1845. 

The Baptist churches of the entire country were rep- 
resented in its organization and conduct and support. 
Its first president was Richard Furman, of South Caro- 
lina. There was, however, considerable opposition, not 



THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION 333 

by any means confined to any one section, to this new mis- 
sionary movement. Many Baptist churches held a form 
of Calvinistic doctrine that was paralyzing to all evangeli- 
cal effort. Their doctrine of the divine decrees was 
practically fatalism : when God was ready to convert the 
heathen, he would do so without human intervention; 
and to send out missionaries for this purpose was an 
irreverent meddling with the divine purposes, as repre- 
hensible as Uzzah's rash staying of the ark of God when 
it seemed about to fall. Consequently, from this time 
onward the Baptists of the United States became di- 
vided into two parties, missionary Baptists and anti- 
missionary Baptists. The latter were at first equal, if 
not superior, in numbers to the former; in some districts 
the anti-mission Baptists were largely in the majority. 
But a doctrine and practice so discouraging of practical 
effort for the salvation of men produced its legitimate 
results in a generation or two, by reducing the number 
of anti-mission Baptists to nearly or quite the vanishing 
point in the greater part of the United States. Remnants 
of the sect still survive, and in a few Southern States 
the churches are still quite strong. Their total number 
has for years been given at about forty thousand in 
denominational statistics, but the census of 1890 states 
their total membership as one hundred and twenty-one 
thousand three hundred and forty-seven. Though they 
long since practically disappeared from the Northern 
States, they have a few churches in almost every State 
of the Union, except the newer ones beyond the 
Mississippi. 

The first mission established by the General Convention 
was in Burma, whither the Judsons went in 181 3, because 
the intolerance of the British East India Company de- 
nied them the privilege of laboring in India, the land 
of their first choice. The work began at Rangoon in 



334 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

July, 1813, but it was not until July, 18 19, that the first 
convert, Moung Nau, was baptized. The war between 
England and Burma broke out just as the work began to 
prosper, and for three years Judson and his devoted wife 
suffered incredible tortures of body and spirit. After 
the war the mission came under British protection and 
prospered. Doctor Judson continued to preach and teach 
until his death, and gave the Burmans the Scriptures 
in their native tongue. 

The work in Burma has not been so prosperous among 
the Burmans as among the Karens, a people living in 
the hill districts. Among them the gospel has made 
great progress from the establishment of the mission by 
Rev. George Dana Boardman, in 1828. A mission in 
Arracan was established in 1835, and one in Siam in 
1833. In 1834 Rev. William Dean began a mission at 
Bangkok among the Chinese of that city. In 1842 Mr. 
Dean left on account of his health, and began a mission 
in Hong Kong. A mission was established in Assam in 
1836, and in 1821 two Negro missionaries were sent out 
to Liberia. These were practically all of the missions 
among the heathen begun and carried on during the 
history of the General Convention. Several European 
missions, however, belong to this period — the missions 
to France, Germany, Denmark, and Greece. Of these, 
something more will be said in another chapter. 

These beginnings of foreign missionary work by Ameri- 
can Baptists were largely blessed in the extension of the 
work among the heathen ; but it may be doubted whether 
the reflex blessing on the Baptist churches of this country 
was not the larger blessing of the two. Never was the 
Scripture better illustrated than in the history of Baptists 
in the United States : " There is that scattereth and yet 
increaseth ; there is that withholdeth more than is meet, 
but it tendeth to poverty." 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 

PAUL the apostle enumerates " perils among false 
brethren " as not the least of the trials that befell 
him in preaching the gospel. So Baptists found it in the 
first half of the nineteenth century. One controversy 
fraught with peril to their churches began in New Eng- 
land before the century opened. It was, indeed, the nat- 
ural, almost the necessary, result of the Great Awaken- 
ing. Just as the Reformation of Luther produced the 
counter-reformation of Loyola, so the Edwards-White- 
field revival produced the Unitarian reaction — produced 
in the sense of precipitating, not in that of original causa- 
tion. Unitarianism had, for some time, been in solution 
in New England, and the revival caused it to crystallize 
into visible form. What had been a tendency became 
a movement; a mode of thinking became a propaganda; 
the esoteric doctrines of a few became the openly avowed 
basis of a sect. We can only glance at this interesting 
topic as we pass by, its place in this survey of Baptist 
history being justified merely by the fact that the New 
.England Baptists stood as a chief bulwark against the 
heresy. In 1800 two of the six orthodox churches left 
in Boston were Baptist, while eight Congregational 
churches and one Episcopal church had gone over bodily 
to Unitarianism. Samuel Stillman and Thomas Baldwin 
were the pastors of these two churches during these 
troublous times, and no two men did more than they 
to resist false doctrines by preaching the truth. In- 
deed, throughout New England it is said that not one 

335 



33^ A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Baptist church forsook the faith, and not one Baptist 
minister of note became a Unitarian. This stanch or- 
thodoxy of the Baptists had a profound effect on the 
history of American Christianity, as will be pointed out 
in another connection. 

A controversy more serious in its results upon the 
denomination was that which grew out of the question 
of the circulation of the Scriptures. In the year 1816, 
the American Bible Society was formed by delegates rep- 
resenting seven denominations of Christians. There had 
been local Bible Societies previous to this time. This 
organization was intended to be a national society, in 
which all American Christians might co-operate. Its 
formation was due to the success of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society, the organization of which in 1804 
was directly owing to the agency of Rev. Joseph Hughes, 
an English Baptist. The Baptists of America were active 
in the work of the Society from the first, and contrib- 
uted generously to its treasury. The object of the So- 
ciety was avowed, at the time of its organization, to be 
" the dissemination of the Scriptures in the received 
versions where they exist, and in the most faithful where 
they are required." In accordance with this principle, 
for the first eighteen years of its existence the Society 
appropriated money from its funds for the printing and 
circulation of versions of the Scriptures in many lan- 
guages, made by missionaries of various denominations. 

Perhaps Doctor Judson's greatest service in the cause 
of missions was the translation of the entire Bible into 
the Burmese language. It was his life-work, and remains 
to this day the only version of the Scriptures in that 
tongue. 1 All competent witnesses have borne testimony 

1 It is true that in recent years copies of the Scriptures have been put 
in circulation in Burma in which baptizo and its cognates are transliterated 
or mistranslated; but these are not independent versions, only Pedobaptist 
revisions of the Judson Bible. 




Page 336 



Adoniram Judson 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 337 

from the first to the faithfulness and elegance of his 
translation. The New Testament was printed at Moul- 
mein in 1832, and the Old Testament two years later. 
Appropriations for this purpose were made by the Ameri- 
can Bible Society. It was well understood on all hands, 
through official communications and otherwise, that the 
missionaries sent out by the American Baptists, in all 
their versions of the Scriptures endeavored to ascertain 
the precise meaning of the original text and to express 
that meaning as exactly as possible, transferring no 
words into the vernacular for which a proper equivalent 
could be found. In accordance with this principle, Doctor 
Judson's version rendered baptizo and its cognates by a 
Burman word meaning to immerse, or dip. During this 
same period appropriations were voted for the circula- 
tion of other missionary versions, made by other than 
Baptist missionaries, yet made on the same principle of 
translation, though they did not agree with Judson as 
to the meaning of baptizo. In 1835 the propriety of 
this course was for the first time questioned. In that 
year application was made to the Society for an appro- 
priation to aid in printing and circulating a version of the 
Scriptures in Bengali, made on the principle of Doctor 
Judson. 

This application was discussed in committee and in 
the full Board for many months. The Baptist members 
of the Board vainly urged that the Society had already 
appropriated eighteen thousand dollars for the circula- 
tion of Doctor Judson's version, with full knowledge of 
its nature; that this was the only version in Burmese 
in existence, and that the alternative was either to cir- 
culate this or deprive the Burmese of the gospel; and 
that the adoption of another rule introduced a new and 
necessarily divisive principle into the Society's policy. At 
length, by a vote of twenty to fourteen, the managers 
w 



338 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

rejected the application and formulated for the guidance 
of the Society a new rule regarding versions — that they 
would " encourage only such versions as conformed in 
the principle of their translation to the common English 
version, at least, so far that all the religious denomina- 
tions represented in this Society can consistently use and 
circulate said versions in their several schools and com- 
munities." At its next annual meeting in May, 1836, the 
Society approved the action of the managers. 

Of course this decision made it impossible for Baptists 
to co-operate with the Society except at the sacrifice of 
their self-respect. In April, 1837, a convention was held 
in Philadelphia, composed of three hundred and ninety 
delegates from twenty-three States, and the American 
and Foreign Bible Society was organized, Doctor Cone 
being elected president. Dr. Charles G. Sommers, of 
New York, was the first corresponding secretary, and 
William Colgate the first treasurer. From the first there 
was difference of opinion among the supporters of this 
Society on one question, namely, the making of a new 
version of the Scriptures in English. Baptists were prac- 
tically a unit in maintaining that all new versions into 
foreign languages should faithfully render every word 
of the original by the corresponding word of the ver- 
nacular. But many Baptists doubted the expediency, and 
still more questioned the necessity, of making a new 
version in our own tongue. The discussion of this ques- 
tion went on until May, 1850, when, after long and 
warm debate, the Society voted to circulate only received 
versions in English, without note or comment. 

In the following June the American Bible Union was 
organized. Its object was declared to be " to procure 
and circulate the most faithful versions of the Scriptures 
in all languages throughout the world." The principle 
of translation adopted by the Union was to render 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 339 

every word of the original Scriptures into the vernacular 
word which would most nearly represent its meaning 
as determined by the best modern scholarship. This work 
was prosecuted with much energy, and revised versions 
of the Scriptures were printed and circulated in Spanish 
and Italian, Chinese, Siamese, and Karen. The Union 
also issued a version of the New Testament in English, in 
1865, which has since passed through several careful 
revisions and is a most faithful, accurate, and idiomatic 
translation. It may still be had of the American Baptist 
Publication Society, and every Baptist should possess a 
copy; for, however much the King James' version may 
commend itself for use in public and private devotions, 
this more literal rendering is of the greatest service to 
one who would understand exactly what the New Testa- 
ment teaches. From time to time parts of the Old Testa- 
ment also have been published, and eminent scholars are 
now completing a translation, with notes, of the remain- 
ing books, under the auspices of the American Baptist 
Publication Society. 1 

Fierce denominational conflicts resulted from this di- 
vision of effort among Baptists regarding the Bible work. 
Many continued from the first to co-operate with the 
American Bible Society, especially in the circulation of 
the received English versions. The remainder who took 
any interest in Bible work were divided in their affec- 
tions between two organizations, and the participants 
of each waged a hot warfare against the others. At every 
denominational gathering the strife broke out. The 
newspapers of the denomination were full of it, and in 
time the churches became heartily tired and showed their 
sentiments by discontinuing their contributions. As the 
receipts dwindled and the work contracted, efforts were 

1 The work at this time (1906) is being pushed forward, and it is hoped 
that another year will witness its completion. 



340 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

made from time to time toward a reunion of the Ameri- 
can and Foreign Bible Society and the American Bible 
Union, and one or both Societies tried to effect a union 
with the American Baptist Publication Society. These 
efforts, which continued from 1869 to 1880, and even 
afterward, proved complete failures. 

Finally, the whole question of Bible work, as done by 
the Baptists, was referred to a Bible convention, in which 
the denomination at large should be represented; and 
such a convention was held at Saratoga in May, 1883. 
It was unanimously decided to recommend both the ex- 
isting Bible Societies practically to disband, and to com- 
mit the Bible work on the home field to the American 
Baptist Publication Society, while that on the foreign 
field should be done by the American Baptist Missionary 
Union. This was felt on all hands to be a happy decision 
of the vexed question, and since that time the denomina- 
tion has enjoyed a season of peace, at least as regards 
the question of its Bible work. 

To one reviewing the controversy after this interval 
of time it seems tolerably plain that while the course 
taken in 1836 was the only one that could have been ex- 
pected under all the circumstances, it would have been 
better for the peace of the denomination and the effect- 
iveness of its Bible work in the long run if a separate 
denominational Bible society had never been undertaken. 
There is not sufficient interest among Baptists in the 
translation and circulation of the Scriptures — probably 
there is not in any single denomination — to sustain a 
society that exists for that sole purpose. The project of 
circulating a denominational version of the Scriptures in 
English has been tested once for all and proved to be a 
disastrous failure. The version was successfully made 
and possesses many merits, but it could not be circulated ; 
Baptists could neither be forced nor coaxed to use it. 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 34 l 

They were greatly the losers and are still by reason of 
this apathy, but we must take the facts of human nature 
as we find them; and one fact now unquestioned is that 
the attachment of English-speaking Christians to the ver- 
sion of the Scriptures endeared to them by long use and 
tender association has proved to be too strong for the 
successful substitution of any other. 

No controversy was more disastrous to the Baptist 
churches of the Middle States than the anti-Masonic 
struggle between the years 1826 and 1840. One William 
Morgan, a Mason, who had published a book purporting 
to expose the secrets of the order, suddenly disappeared 
in 1826, and was believed to have been foully dealt with. 
A body was discovered and identified as his, though the 
identification has always been regarded as doubtful. Ex- 
citement against the Masons, and secret fraternities gen- 
erally, rose high, until the dispute became a political issue 
in State and even national elections, and the churches 
took the matter up. In a large number of Baptist 
churches the majority opposed secret fraternities, declar- 
ing them to be unscriptural and dangerous to the peace 
and liberties of the Commonwealth. In many cases the 
minority were disfellowshiped, and not a few flourishing 
churches were crippled, or even extinguished, while the 
growth of all was much retarded. The lessons of that 
period have taught American Baptists to be chary of 
interfering through church discipline with questions not 
strictly religious, and to beware of attempting to settle 
by an authoritative rule questions of conduct which it is 
the right and duty of each Christian man to decide for 
himself. Thus, while at the present time, the majority 
of Baptists strongly favor total abstinence as a rule of 
personal conduct, and prohibition as a practical policy, 
in very few churches is either made a test of fellowship. 

The Baptist churches of the South and West were 



342 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

much disturbed during the second quarter of this century 
by the agitation that culminated in the establishment of 
the Disciples as a separate body. Up to that time the 
churches of these regions, to a considerable extent, held 
a hyper-Calvinistic, almost antinomian, theology. The 
preaching was largely doctrinal, and was not edifying 
to the majority of the hearers, however much it might 
be enjoyed by a few. Since the revival of 1800, religious 
experiences in this region had been attended with much 
emotional disturbance. Christians professed to see vis- 
ions, to hear heavenly voices, and to experience great 
extremes of grief and joy. Undue importance came to be 
attached to experiences of this type, and the relation of 
a series of vivid and emotional phenomena approaching 
the miraculous was considered an almost indispensable 
requisite before the acceptance of a candidate for baptism. 

About the year 181 5 certain preachers in Western 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky began to preach what 
they called a reformation. The professed object was to 
return to the simplicity of the New Testament faith and 
practice. The Scriptures alone were to be the authority 
in this reformation, whose motto was, " Where the 
Scriptures speak, we speak; where they are silent, we 
are silent." All human creeds were rejected, candidates 
for baptism were not required to relate any experience, 
but merely to profess faith in Christ, a faith that was 
little, if anything, more than a mere assent of the intellect 
to the facts narrated in the Scriptures concerning the 
historic Christ. On such profession the candidate was 
baptized " for remission of sins," the teaching being that 
only in such baptism could he receive the assurance that 
his sins had been pardoned. 

The foremost leader in promoting this reformation 
was Alexander Campbell, of Scotch ancestry and train- 
ing, at first a Presbyterian of the Seceder sect, who had 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 343 

been baptized on profession of faith by a Baptist minister 
in 1812, and from that time onward maintained for some 
years a nominal connection with the Baptist denomina- 
tion. Very early, however, he manifested marked differ- 
ences of opinion from the views then and since held by 
the majority of Baptists; and it soon became evident 
either that the faith and practice of the denomination 
must undergo a remarkable change, or Mr. Campbell 
and those who agreed with him must withdraw. 

When in 1827, through the influence of Rev. Walter 
Scott, the practice of baptism " unto remission of sins " 
became a recognized feature in the reformation, Baptists 
who saw in this nothing but the old heresy of baptismal 
regeneration, promptly bore testimony against it. The 
Mahoning Association, of Ohio, was so deeply perme- 
ated by the new teaching that it disbanded, and the 
churches followed Messrs. Campbell and Scott almost in 
a body. The Redstone Association, of Western Pennsyl- 
vania, withdrew fellowship from Mr. Campbell and his 
followers in 1827. Two years later the Beaver Associa- 
tion, of the same region, issued a warning to all Baptist 
churches against the errors taught under the guise of a 
reformation, and in 1832 the Dover Association, of Vir- 
ginia, advised Baptist churches to separate from their 
communion " all such persons as are promoting contro- 
versy and discord under the specious name of reform- 
ers." This advice was given on the ground that the 
doctrines taught were " not according to godliness, but 
subversive of the true spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
disorganizing and demoralizing in their tendency, and 
therefore ought to be disavowed and resisted by all the 
lovers of sound truth and piety." Twenty years after, 
Rev. Jeremiah B. Jeter, one of the ablest Baptist op- 
ponents of the Disciple movement, and one of the authors 
of this resolution, published it as his belief that the 



344 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

report adopted by the Dover Association contained " some 
unguarded, unnecessarily harsh expressions," and par- 
ticularly acknowledged that this characterization of the 
doctrines of Campbell as " demoralizing in their tend- 
ency " was unjust. After the action of the Dover Asso- 
ciation those who sympathized with Mr. Campbell either 
voluntarily withdrew from the Baptists or were disfel- 
lowshiped by them, and in a decade the separation was 
complete. 

The effect of this separation was very great. The new 
reformation had been started, ostensibly at least, with 
the desire of uniting all Christian denominations. Its 
practical result was the addition of another to the already 
long list of sects. The Baptist churches in the West 
and Southwest were rent in twain by the schism. Large 
numbers of Baptist churches went over to the reforma- 
tion in a body. Many others were divided. A period of 
heated and bitter controversy followed, the results of 
which have not yet passed away. The Baptist churches 
succeeded in separating themselves from what they 
rgarded as dangerous heresy, but at a tremendous 
cost; and in our own day the Baptists and the Disciples 
(as the followers of Mr. Campbell prefer to be called) 
have so nearly approached agreement that the sons of 
the men who fought hardest on either side are already 
discussing the question whether terms of reunion are not 
possible, without either party sacrificing any real 
principle. 1 

But perhaps the most bitter controversy of all, cer- 
tainly that which left behind it the deepest scars and 
most permanent alienations, was that which arose over 
the question of slavery. This was not an experience 

1 It must be said, however, that thus far the discussion of this question 
lias thrown no great light upon the possibility of a reunion, and that the 
immediate occurrence of such an event cannot be predicted with 
hopefulness. 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 345 

peculiar to Baptists; nearly every religious body in 
America was rent by the same contentions, and in most 
cases permanent schisms were the result. 

When the General Convention was organized, this was 
by no means a burning question. Slavery had been orig- 
inally common to all the colonies, and the people of New 
England had done their full share toward introducing 
and perpetuating the system. Perhaps the eyes of North- 
ern people were more readily opened to the iniquities of 
slavery because the system never proved profitable in the 
North. Whether owing to this or other causes, an anti- 
slavery sentiment spread through the Northern States to 
an extent sufficient to induce them to emancipate their 
slaves early in the nineteenth century. About the year 
1825 the new anti-slavery sentiment in the North, de- 
manding immediate emancipation, became prominent, and 
from January I, 1831, when William Lloyd Garrison is- 
sued his first number of the " Liberator," this sentiment 
rapidly spread. It met with much opposition, and soon 
the Garrisonian anti-slavery agitation placed itself in di- 
rect antagonism to the Christian churches of the North. 
Nevertheless, there was a growing sentiment among the 
churches, and especially among the Baptist churches, that 
a Christian man ought not to be a holder of slaves. This 
agitation became the cause of division even among the 
Baptist churches of the Northern States, and naturally 
threatened the peace and unity of the denomination as 
a whole. 

Differences of opinion regarding the slavery question 
appear in the minutes of the General Convention for 
several years before the final break. These appeared to 
reach the culminating point in the year 1844. The ques- 
tion of the relation to slavery of Baptist churches repre- 
sented in the Convention came up during the meeting 
of that year for thorough discussion, and after careful 



346 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

consideration the Convention almost unanimously adopted 
the following: 

Resolved, That in co-operating together as members in this 
Convention in the work of foreign missions, we disclaim all 
sanctions either expressed or implied, whether of slavery or 
anti-slavery; but as individuals we are free to express and to 
promote elsewhere our views on these subjects in a Christian 
manner and spirit. 

This certainly was the only possible method of treat- 
ing the question if denominational unity was to be pre- 
served. Had the terms of that resolution been fairly 
adhered to, it is possible that the peace and unity of the 
Baptist churches might have been preserved, at least 
until the outbreak of the Civil War. But its terms were 
not respected. Up to this time the rule for the appoint- 
ment of missionaries by the Board of the Convention 
was to approve " such persons only as are in full com- 
munion with some church in our denomination, and who 
furnish satisfactory evidence of genuine piety, good tal- 
ents, and fervent zeal for the Redeemer's cause." This 
was certainly the only proper rule to be adopted by an 
institution representing all the Baptist churches of the 
United States — the only rule under which all those 
churches could unite in its support. The Executive Board 
had received a mandate from the Convention in 1844 to 
preserve this attitude of neutrality. Nevertheless, in the 
following December, in response to a question addressed 
to it by a Southern body, the Executive Board made the 
following reply, which was, in fact, the adoption of a 
new rule : " If any one who should offer himself for a 
missionary, having slaves, should insist on retaining them 
as his property, we could not appoint him. One thing 
is certain, we can never be a party to an arrangement 
which would imply approbation of slavery." 





Page 34 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 347 

No doubt the Board was actuated by conscientious 
motives in making such a reply, but it is easy now to 
see that they misjudged their duties as Christian men. 
They were the agents of the body that appointed them, 
and were under moral obligation to obey its commands. 
In making this rule they flagrantly disobeyed. If they 
felt as Christian men that obedience to the higher law of 
God forbade them to carry out their instructions, their 
honorable course was to resign. There is no adequate 
defense of their conduct in thus disobeying the plain 
mandate they had received from the Convention only a 
few months before. At its meeting in April, 1845, the 
American Baptist Home Mission Society, moved by 
a similar conflict of sentiment and the majority of its 
attendants being Northern men, adopted resolutions de- 
claring it to be " expedient that the members now form- 
ing the Society should hereafter act in separate organiza- 
tions at the South and at the North in promoting the 
objects which were originally contemplated by the So- 
ciety." These two acts on the part of Northern Baptists 
rendered the maintenance of denominational unity 
impossible. 

In May, 1845, m response to the call issued by the 
Virginia Foreign Mission Society, three hundred and 
ten delegates from the Southern churches met at Au- 
gusta, Ga., and organized the Southern Baptist Conven- 
tion. Its constitution was precisely that of the original 
General Baptist Convention : " For eliciting, combining, 
and directing the energies of the whole denomination in 
one sacred effort for the propagation of the gospel." 
It established two Boards, one for foreign missions, lo- 
cated in Richmond, and one for domestic missions, at 
Marion, Ala. Since that time the Southern Baptist 
churches have done their missionary work through this 
organization. During the Civil War the need was greatly 



348 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

felt of some means of effectually prosecuting Sunday- 
school work and a Sunday-school Board was established 
at Greenville, S. C. In 1872 this was consolidated with 
the Home Mission Board. 

The division thus caused has remained until the pres- 
ent time. There have been occasional propositions for 
a reunion between Northern and Southern Baptists, but 
they have met with little favor either North or South. 
The opinion has been general that more and better work 
is accomplished between the two organizations than could 
be accomplished by a single Baptist Convention for the 
whole United States. But Northern and Southern Bap- 
tists are not, as some apparently delight to say, two sep- 
arate denominations. The churches, both North and South, 
hold substantially one system of doctrine, agree in all im- 
portant points of practice, receive and dismiss members 
from each other without question, and are in full, unre- 
stricted, uninterrupted intercommunion. The old cause 
of bitterness and disunion, the question of property in 
slaves, has disappeared. The generation that caused the 
breach of denominational unity has nearly disappeared. 
Those who are now the leaders of the Baptist hosts, both 
North and South, are largely men who have been born 
since the Civil War or were too young to have a vivid 
recollection of it, and they have little part in or sym- 
pathy with the ante-bellum controversies, misunder- 
standings, and bitterness. Such causes of estrangement 
as still remain are diminishing with every year, and if 
separate organizations are maintained or shall hereafter 
be formed for any kind of denominational work, it will 
be not because of mutual hostility and narrow sectional 
feeling, but because, in the judgment of cool-headed and 
judicious men, the work of our Lord may be more ad- 
vantageously and efficiently accomplished by such division 
of labor. 



THE DAYS OF CONTROVERSY 349 

After the Southern Baptists withdrew from the General 
Convention, acts of legislature were obtained in Penn- 
sylvania and Massachusetts, authorizing the changing of 
its name to the American Baptist Missionary Union, and 
fixing its headquarters at Boston. The Union is now 
composed of delegates appointed by the churches on a 
fixed basis. The most important business is transacted 
by a Board of Managers (of whom one-third are elected 
at each annual meeting), and an Executive Committee 
chosen by this Board. 



CHAPTER XXII 

EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 

AS was pointed out before, the line of demarcation 
between the periods of American Baptist history is 
uncertain, and dates cannot be positively fixed. Over- 
lapping the period of rapid growth and missionary ex- 
tension, ending at the latest about the year 1850, is a 
movement of another sort, manifesting itself in the 
spiritual quickening and edification of the churches. For 
nearly a half-century after the Great Awakening there 
had been no marked revivals of religion. Then a great 
revival wave, beginning in New England about the year 
1790, swept over the whole country within the next ten 
years. In the Southwest it was marked by a fanaticism 
and a series of remarkable physical phenomena that 
tended to bring revivals into disfavor with the sober- 
minded and judicious. Thereupon ensued another period 
of inaction, lasting about a generation. It was broken 
by the revivals of Finney, through whose agency in the 
ten years following 1825 there were added fully one 
hundred thousand persons to the Northern Presbyterian 
churches. The year 1857 saw an even more remarkable 
wave of revival, from the influence of which no part of 
the country was exempt, and a half-million are said to 
have been converted in a single year. 

Since then the norm of church life seems changed. 
No longer do we have periodic waves of intense religious 
excitement, with intervening periods of coolness and in- 
difference, but a slowly rising tide of spiritual power. 
Progress is no longer by occasional leaps, but by a steady 
35o 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 35 I 

advance. Evangelism is not less genuine now than in 
the days when a Finney or a Knapp stirred whole com- 
munities as they never were stirred before, but now an 
evangelist preaches weekly from nearly every pulpit. The 
type of preaching has changed; it is simple and direct; 
it aims more consciously at the conversion of men. It 
is more intelligently adapted to reach the will through 
the intellect and affection, and to produce an immediate 
decision for or against Christ. Whether the change is 
permanent it would be rash to pronounce. The names 
of Moody and Sam Jones, unfitting as it is in other 
ways for them to be pronounced together, testify to the 
fact that both at the North and at the South it is still 
possible to interest great crowds in religion, and that 
occasional revivals may be expected rivaling all that we 
read of in past years. 

The large place filled by local and State work during 
the past fifty years should be by no means overlooked, 
for it is one of the chief factors in Baptist progress. 
The State Conventions or general Associations now or- 
ganized in every State are missionary bodies, whose use- 
fulness it would be difficult to overrate. In the Baptist 
Missionary Convention of the State of New York, one 
of the oldest and most active of these bodies, will be 
found a good type of all. The object of this Convention 
is declared in its constitution to be " To promote the 
preaching of the gospel, and the establishment and main- 
tenance of Baptist churches in the State of New York; 
to encourage the common educational interests of the de- 
nomination within the State, the general care and en- 
couragement of denominational Sunday-school work, to 
promote denominational acquaintance, fellowship, and 
growth." Forty-three local Associations are found in 
the territory of this Convention. Many of the local As- 
sociations — which in the oldest States usually follow 



352 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

county lines — do a similar work, and often on a scale not 
inferior to that of the State organization, though in a 
field more circumscribed. Of these the Southern New 
York Association is a good type. Organized for " The 
cultivation of fraternal sympathy, the promotion of each 
other's spiritual welfare, and the establishment and 
strengthening of Baptist churches within its bounds," its 
churches have long maintained efficient city mission work 
in the metropolis, to which is largely due the past and 
present growth of the New York Baptists. 

Another chief distinguishing feature of American Bap- 
tist history is the remarkable development of educational 
work. Almost from the first, Baptists felt the necessity 
of a better education for their children, and especially 
for the rising ministry. An academy was established by 
the Rev. Isaac Eaton, at Hopewell, N. J., in 1756, and 
continued its work for eleven years. It even obtained 
a small endowment through the aid of the Philadelphia 
and Charleston Associations, which was, however, lost 
during the Revolution through the depreciation of Con- 
tinental money. During the continuance of its work, one 
of its pupils was James Manning ; his conversion occurred 
while he was at the academy, and is to be ascribed under 
God to his teacher. If the Hopewell Academy had done 
nothing more than give the world James Manning, it 
would be entitled to the gratitude of Baptists for all time. 
But it also gave us a man only less distinguished and 
useful than he, Hezekiah Smith, and many other eminent 
ministers and laymen were among its pupils. Similar 
private schools of a like grade were established in other 
places by Baptists ; among them one at Lower Dublin 
(now in Philadelphia) by Dr. Samuel Jones, one in New 
York by Doctor Stanford, and one at Bordentown, N. J., 
by Dr. Burgess Allison. 

About 1750 some Baptists in the Philadelphia Associa- 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 353 

tion began to consider seriously the project of founding 
a higher institution of learning. Few Baptist students 
could avail themselves of the advantages offered by the 
existing colleges, which were besides strongly anti-Bap- 
tist in sentiment and often in teaching. For various 
reasons it was difficult to obtain a charter for such an 
institution from the legislatures of New York, New Jer- 
sey, or Pennsylvania. Consequently, though the project 
for the new college originated in the Philadelphia As- 
sociation, the eyes of the brethren were turned toward 
Rhode Island as the State most likely to grant the Bap- 
tists a liberal charter for a college. They looked about 
for a suitable head of such an institution, and found it 
in James Manning, who had gone in 1758 from Hope- 
well Academy to Princeton College, and was graduated 
four years later with the second honors of his class. 
Shortly after his graduation he married Margaret Stites, 
the daughter of a ruling elder of the Presbyterian church 
in Elizabethtown, who proved " an help meet for him " 
indeed. A year was spent in travel through the country, 
and when Manning returned he found his life-work ready 
for him. 

Manning was a young man to take the lead in such an 
enterprise, it is true, but was greatly esteemed for his 
prudence and good sense, of fine presence and good re- 
pute as a scholar, in every way fitted to be an educational 
leader. He met the Baptists of Rhode Island, or some 
of their representative men, at Newport, in July, 1763.; 
He unfolded his plan, and it met with their acceptance. 
A charter was drafted, and after some legislative pitfalls 
were successfully avoided, it was enacted in February, 
1764. It provided that the president, twenty-two trus- 
tees, and eight fellows were forever to be Baptists, but 
the remaining trustees of the thirty-six were to be of the 
different denominations then represented in the State; 
x 



354 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTIST$ 

while four fellows were to be elected " indifferently of 
any or of all denominations." To all positions in the fac- 
ulty save that of president, and to all other honors and 
advantages, persons of all religious denominations were 
to be freely admitted. Such a charter, while it gave to 
the denomination that founded the institution perpetual 
control of it (as was but right), was in perfect harmony 
with the spirit of religious liberty that had characterized 
the colony of Rhode Island from the first. 

The college began giving instruction in Warren in 
1766, Mr. Manning being president and professor of lan- 
guages; and that year the institution had one student. 
The college celebrated its first commencement September 
7, 1769, when the degree of bachelor of arts was con- 
ferred on seven young men. In 1770 the people of 
Providence subscribed four thousand two hundred dol- 
lars for the erection of University Hall, and the college 
was removed to that city. In 1776 the capture of the 
city by the British made necessary the suspension of in- 
struction, which was not resumed until 1780, the college 
building being used much of the time by the British as 
a barracks. Doctor Manning continued his labors as 
president until his death, in 1791. During the greater 
portion of the time he was also pastor of the First Bap- 
tist Church of Providence. In 1804 the name of the 
institution (at first Rhode Island College) was changed 
to Brown University, in honor of Nicholas Brown, its 
generous benefactor. This, the oldest and best-known 
Baptist institution of learning, has a long and distin- 
guished roll of alumni and a property valued at two and 
a half million dollars, besides an endowment of nearly 
three millions. 

Very soon the need of more distinctively theological 
education was felt, but for some time nothing was done. 
The Newton Theological Institution owes its origin to a 





~^«^*^ 



Pa 




ge 354 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 355 

meeting of ministers and laymen held in Boston, 1825. 
Its early years were marked by difficulties and debt, but 
at length a permanent endowment was secured. It has 
graduated or instructed over eight hundred students, and 
among its alumni are many of the most useful and dis- 
tinguished preachers and teachers of the denomination. 
Another New England institution is Waterville College, 
Maine, which was founded in 181 8 by the Rev. Jeremiah 
Chaplin, as the outcome of a private school maintained 
by him at Danvers. The collegiate charter was granted 
in 1820. The early history of the institution was one of 
continual struggle with adversity, but of late years it has 
found generous friends. In recognition of the benefac- 
tions of one of these, Gardner Colby, the name was 
changed, in 1867, to Colby University; and still later the 
ambitious name of university was changed into the more 
modest and truthful title, college. 

New England Baptists have been wiser in their day 
than those of most other sections, by providing liberally 
for secondary or academic education. Thus Colby has 
three Maine academies closely connected with it as feed- 
ers, while New Hampshire and Vermont have each a 
flourishing academy. Worcester Academy, in Massa- 
chusetts, and the Suffield Literary Institute, in Connecti- 
cut, care for the Baptist youth of those States, and are 
among the principal sources whence Brown University 
derives students. The educational system of New Eng- 
land Baptists therefore stands on a solid foundation ; 
they have not committed the error of resting the pyramid 
on its apex. 

In the Middle and Western States, and to some extent 
in the South, there has not been this unity of action in 
educational matters. Early in the present century a new 
development of interest in education was manifest among 
the Baptists which took form in the organization of 



35^ A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

education societies. One of the first of these was formed 
at Hamilton, N. Y., in 1817, and the following year 
Jonathan Wade was admitted a student of the new in- 
stitution. President Garfield said once that his idea of 
a college was Mark Hopkins at one end of a log and a 
young man at the other. That was about how the Ham- 
ilton Literary and Theological Institution began; at one 
end was Daniel Hascall, at the other Jonathan Wade. 
The second student to join this infant institution was 
Eugenio Kincaid. Soon others came, and in 1820 the 
institution was opened to the public and formal instruction 
began. 

Another institution that belongs to this early period 
is the Columbian College, at Washington. It owes its 
origin, like so many of our best denominational agencies, 
to the Philadelphia Association. As far back as 1807, 
Dr. William Staughton began to receive students into his 
household. He continued this work for a series of years, 
partly on his own account, partly as an appointed " tutor : ' 
of the Baptist Education Society of the Middle States. 
Finally, at the instance of the Rev. Luther Rice, the 
General Convention took the matter up, and undertook 
the establishment of a higher institution of learning, es- 
pecially for the training of ministers. This movement 
resulted in the chartering of the Columbian College (now 
University) in 1821, and the removal of Dr. Staughton's 
school to Washington as the " theological department " 
of the new college. The hope of establishing a school 
at Washington for the training of ministers proved futile, 
and this theological department was finally transferred 
to Newton, at its establishment in 1825. 

The school at Hamilton, in 1834, developed into the 
Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution. In 1846, 
the literary department was chartered as a university, 
its name being changed to Madison University, the 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 357 

theological seminary being maintained as a separate insti- 
tution, but in harmony with the college. The village of 
Hamilton was thought by many Baptists to be an unsuit- 
able site for a denominational school, and in 1847 an 
effort was made to remove it to a better location. 

The city of Rochester offered special inducements, and 
was decided upon as the new site. But a party rallied 
to the defense of the old site, discussions grew warm, 
passionate feelings were excited, and the end was a di- 
vision — part of the faculty and supporters going to found 
a new institution, since known as the University of 
Rochester. The new institution opened its doors to stu- 
dents in 1850. April 6, 1853, Martin Brewer Anderson 
was chosen president, and filled the office with conspicu- 
ous ability until 1888. David J. Hill, then president of 
Bucknell University, was elected his successor, and 
resigned in 1895. After an interregnum of several years, 
Prof. Rush Rhees, of the Newton Theological Institution, 
was chosen president, and assumed his duties in 1900. 

The Rochester Theological Seminary was an outgrowth 
of the same movement, but had a separate existence from 
the first, though for a time it had quarters in the Uni- 
versity buildings, and some men taught in both faculties. 
The Seminary was founded in 1850 by the New York 
Baptist Union for Ministerial Education, and in 1853, 
Dr. Ezekiel G. Robinson was elected president. At his 
resignation, in 1872, Rev. Augustus Hopkins Strong was 
chosen to be his successor. A German department was 
organized in 1854, and has ever since been maintained. 

In the meantime the friends of the institution at Hamil- 
ton rallied to its support and gradually increased its 
endowment. The family of William Colgate have repeat- 
edly been its munificent benefactors, and in honor of 
them the institution was named Colgate University in 
1890. Thus, out of seeming misfortune has come some 



358 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

good. Still this division of the New York institution 
has been marked by a corresponding division among the 
churches, part of which have supported the one and part 
the other. The old bitterness has somewhat subsided of 
late years, but it is in the highest degree unfortunate 
that the present generation should seem willing to 
perpetuate divisions caused by the unwisdom and 
contentiousness of their fathers. 

This experience has been duplicated in several West- 
ern States, and rival institutions have been founded in 
excess of educational needs, with the result of making 
all poor and inefficient, where a single strong institution 
might have been established. So serious had become the 
lack of unity, and the consequent waste of money and 
labor, that there was organized at Washington, in May, 
1888, an American Baptist Education Society, under 
whose leadership it is to be hoped that the mistakes of 
the past may be avoided. Its great achievements thus 
far have been assisting the Southern and Western insti- 
tutions to add to their endowments, and the founding of 
the new University of Chicago, through the liberality 
of Mr. John D. Rockefeller. Though established so re- 
cently as 1890, this university has already property 
amounting to nearly or quite ten millions and an endow- 
ment of nearly equal amount. This accomplishment in 
so short a period may be justly termed phenomenal. 

We can do little more than name the principal schools 
of learning founded by Baptists during the last half- 
century; if it were attempted to give even a brief sketch 
of the career of each, these chapters would stretch out 
to quite unwieldy proportions. The following should 
at least be named : Baptist Union Theological Seminary, 
Morgan Park, 111. (1867) ; x Crozer Theological Sem- 
inary, Upland, Pa. (1868) ; Southern Baptist Theological 

1 Since 1890 the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 359 

Seminary, Louisville, Ky. (1858); Bucknell Univer- 
sity, Lewisburg, Pa. (1846); Columbian University, 
Washington, D. C. (1821); Richmond College, Rich- 
mond, Va. (1832) ; Denison University, Granville, Ohio 
(1832). Vassar College, founded in 1861, at Pough- 
keepsie, N. Y., by the beneficence of Matthew Vassar, is 
the best endowed college for women in the world. The 
omission of other names does not imply that institutions 
equally worthy and doing excellent work do not exist in 
many parts of our land. 

One of the most striking things in the recent religious 
history of America has been the development of work 
among and for the young. The Sunday-school was es- 
tablished as a department of church work early in the 
present century, and from about the year i860 societies 
for young people began to be formed almost simultane- 
ously in most of the evangelical churches. There was 
nothing like a concerted movement, however, for another 
twenty years. 

In the Williston Congregational Church, of Portland, 
Me., a society was formed February 2, 1881, to which 
the name was given of " The Society of Christian En- 
deavor." It attempted to organize the young people in 
a closer relation to the church than had been general, and 
to train them for Christian service. The idea was catch- 
ing, and societies of this kind were rapidly organized 
in many localities and among various denominations. 

Not a few Baptist pastors desired a society that should 
be more distinctively denominational in character, and 
have a denominational name; and for a time there was 
much discussion and even prospect of serious trouble in 
the denomination. In October, 1889, at the meeting of 
the Nebraska State Convention, the Nebraska Convention 
of Baptist Young People was organized, and all societies 
of Baptist young people in the State were invited to 



360 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

affiliate with it, without giving up the name or form of 
organization that they preferred. At the instance of the 
American Baptist Publication Society a conference of 
friends of the work was held in Philadelphia, April 22, 
1 89 1, as a result of which this policy was commended to 
the Baptist churches at large. Accordingly, at Chicago, 
on July 8 of the same year, the Baptist Young People's 
Union of America was organized on a basis so broad 
that any society of young people in a Baptist church, 
or the young people of a Baptist church who have no 
organization, are entitled to all its privileges. 

The distinctive work of this organization is educational. 
In its organ, " Service," it publishes every year three 
courses of study on the Bible, missions, and denom- 
inational teachings and history. These Christian Cul- 
ture Courses are now pursued by many thousands of 
young Baptists, the number of students increasing every 
year, and several of the courses of study have been pub- 
lished in permanent book form. It is the hope and ex- 
pectation that the coming generation of Baptists will be, 
as a result of this educational work, more intelligent, 
consistent, and loyal Baptists, and not less catholic Chris- 
tians. Several other denominations have watched this 
work with growing interest, and are planning something 
of a similar nature for their own young people. 

Chief among the educational institutions of the de- 
nomination may be reckoned the American Baptist Pub- 
lication Society. Beginning at Washington, D. C, in 
1824, as the Baptist General Tract Society, its transfer 
to Philadelphia was voted in November, 1826. In 1840 
its name was changed to the American Baptist Publica- 
tion and Sunday-school Society (the word Sunday-school 
being dropped in 1844), and the purposes of the organi- 
zation were enlarged, being now defined as " to promote 
evangelical religion by means of the printing-press, 



EVANGELISM AND EDUCATION 36 1 

colportage, and the Sunday-school." In 1856 the Society 
acquired by purchase the " Young Reaper," and from that 
time added other Sunday-school periodicals to its list, un- 
til it has reached its present proportions and immense cir- 
culation. In the earlier years of the Society, its work of 
publication was necessarily confined in the main to books 
and papers for Sunday-schools ; but it was never a part 
of its plan thus to restrict the field of its operations. 
As early as 1844, the publication of books for the de- 
nomination at large was begun by the issue of an Ameri- 
can edition of the writings of Andrew Fuller, the first 
of a long list of books of the highest value and of many 
varieties. Contrary to a general impression for many 
years, the bulk of the Society's issues has been in this 
field of general literature, not in Sunday-school publica- 
tions. With the increase of capital and the gathering of 
a corps of authors, the Society has come to take an hon- 
orable and prominent place among the great publishing 
houses of the United States, as estimated by the size and 
value of its annual literary output ; while the enlargement 
and improvement of its mechanical facilities has enabled it 
to vie with the foremost of American publishers in all that 
constitutes good book-making. The query, " Who reads 
a Baptist book ? " has become as obsolete as that other 
question, once so provocative of wrath, " Who reads an 
American book?" Besides its colportage work in this 
country, the Society has from time to time engaged- in 
foreign colportage, men like Oncken, Wiberg, and Bickel 
having been aided in this way to carry on missionary 
work in Europe. Since 1862 this work has been con- 
ducted by a missionary department, with separate offices 
and separate accounts. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 

IN order to appreciate the Baptist history of the past 
fifty years, we must first of all gain as vivid and accu- 
rate a picture as we may of the state of the Baptist 
churches of America at the middle of the nineteenth 
century. Naturally our first resort is to statistics, but we 
speedily discover that no really trustworthy figures are 
accessible. 1 The only statistics of the denomination for 
the year 1850 are taken from the Baptist Almanac for 
the following year, and are as follows: 

CHURCHES MINISTERS MEMBERS 

Northern 3,557 2,665 296,614 

Southern 4,849 2,477 390,807 



Total 8,406 5,142 687,421 

These figures are open to much suspicion. In a table, 
many times republished, which first appeared in the Bap- 
tist Year-Book for 1872, the following totals are given 
for the year 1851 : Churches, nine thousand five hundred 
and fifty-two; ministers, seven thousand three hundred 
and ninety-three ; members, seven hundred and seventy 
thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine. So great an 
increase in a single year as is shown by a comparison 
of these figures, particularly in the number of churches 
and ministers, appears quite improbable. We may, how- 

1 Until 1 868, when the American Baptist Publication Society began issuing 
the " Year Book," nothing like official denominational statistics were known, 
and it is only in an accommodated sense that the " Year Book " figures 
since that date may be called " official." 
362 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 363 

ever, take seven hundred thousand as approximately the 
number of Baptists in the United States in 1850. The 
census of that year returned the total population as 
twenty-three million one hundred and ninety-one thou- 
sand eight hundred and seventy-six. There was at that 
time, therefore, one Baptist to about thirty-two persons 
in the population — reckoning only those in full denomina- 
tional fellowship. If we had included all the varieties of 
Baptists in our computation, the total number would be- 
come not fewer than eight hundred thousand (the Baptist 
Almanac gives eight hundred and fifteen thousand two 
hundred and twelve), and the proportion would be about 
one in twenty-nine of the population. This was a very 
marked increase from the year 1800, when the propor- 
tion is supposed to have been one Baptist to every fifty- 
three persons, or thereabouts. It is further to be noted 
that in making these comparisons, only actual reported 
members of Baptist churches are included. If we com- 
puted " adherents," at the rate of three for each member, 
it would probably be true that in 1850 one person in 
each eleven of the population was a Baptist in esse or 
in posse. 

But even if one could trust these numerical results as 
precisely accurate, they would give us a most inadequate 
idea of the condition of Baptists in 1850. We need to 
know many facts besides mere numbers. What was the 
measure of the piety and intelligence of these people? 
How did they compare in evangelistic and missionary zeal 
with other Christian bodies? Were they united in their 
efforts or disorganized by heresy and faction? The an- 
swer to such questions as these will go further to decide 
the strength of a denomination than an array of figures, 
however imposing. This is what some have meant by 
saying that a denomination must not only be counted, but 
weighed. 



364 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Perhaps the most striking fact, as we survey the de- 
nomination in 1850, is that it had just emerged from a 
period of prolonged and bitter controversies, which had 
resulted in a number of schisms. In spite of these con- 
tests, Baptists had continued to increase with wonderful 
rapidity, far outstripping the growth of population, and 
surpassed in numerical increase by the Methodists alone 
of all American Christians. This growth was not due to 
immigration, as in the case of many religious bodies ; 
nor to proselytism, as in the case of certain others; but 
to the making of converts among the native population. 

As to the state of piety and intelligence among Bap- 
tists in 1850, it is not easy to speak in general terms that 
will be at once accurate and just. In intelligence, they 
may be conceded to have been inferior to some other 
denominations, notably to the Presbyterians, inferior to 
the standard that now obtains among themselves. It 
would be shame to them if it were not so. If all the 
educational advantages enjoyed by this generation have 
not set them above their fathers, then those fathers toiled 
and sacrificed in vain for unworthy children. The stand- 
ard of piety was high among the Baptist churches of 
1850. The fathers believed heartily in the fundamental 
Baptist principle of a regenerate church; and candidates 
for membership were subjected to a thorough and search- 
ing examination of the grounds of their belief that they 
had been born again. And in most cases, the fathers in- 
sisted strenuously that a profession of regeneration should 
be avouched by a godly walk and conversation. Dis- 
cipline was not one of the lost arts among Baptist 
churches in the " fifties." 

Most important of all — at any rate, most striking of 
all things that may be said of the Baptists of 1850 — is 
the fact that they had unconsciously come to the begin- 
ning of a new order of things. Up to this time, or near 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 365 

it, Baptists had been the sect everywhere spoken against 
— the Ishmael among denominations, every man's hand 
against it, and to a certain extent its hand against every 
man. Before this, Baptists had everywhere been few in 
numbers, composed chiefly of what are contemptuously 
called " the common people," often persecuted, always 
despised, frequently unlearned. Now they had become 
the largest Protestant body but one in the United States ; 
they surpassed most other bodies in the scope and ef- 
fectiveness of their missionary operations; they were 
rapidly increasing in wealth, intelligence, and social con- 
sequence. In a word, it was actually becoming respect- 
able to be a Baptist. Only those who have carefully 
studied the beginnings of the denomination, in our own 
country and elsewhere, can fully comprehend how much 
that means. Some can remember communities where, 
since 1850, it was not quite respectable to be a Baptist — 
where to be a member of that denomination was to incur 
a social stigma of which most who live to-day have had 
no personal experience. 

Fifty years of history — what have they brought forth 
for the Baptists of America? We are to consider the 
half-century most wonderful for the rapidity of its ma- 
terial development in the history of mankind, and the 
country in which this development has been unmatched 
elsewhere on the globe. To these five decades belongs 
almost wholly the growth of the mighty West, with its 
fourteen new Commonwealths containing a greater popu- 
lation to-day than the whole United States could boast 
in 1810. Nor is the religious development of this vast 
region one whit less wonderful. How far have Baptists 
kept pace with both? 

Again let us have recourse to statistics, as a beginning. 
The actual population of the United States in 1900 
was seventy-four million six hundred and ten thousand 



366 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

five hundred and twenty-three, or, including all the 
Territories, seventy-six million three hundred and three 
thousand three hundred and eighty-seven. The denom- 
inational statistics show that four million one hundred 
and eighty-one thousand six hundred and eighty-six per- 
sons were members of regular Baptist churches — or one 
Baptist to every eighteen of the population. If we add 
those churches which, though not in full fellowship, may 
be fairly said to hold and practise Baptist principles, the 
proportion is about one in sixteen. If we add " adher- 
ents " — those connected with Baptist families, congre- 
gations, Sunday-schools — one person in every seven or 
eight of the entire population may be reckoned a Baptist 
in sentiment. 

In the way of numerical increase, what could be more 
gratifying to a religious body? The population has in- 
creased about three and one-third fold during the last 
half-century, while, in the same time, Baptists have in- 
creased in numbers almost sixfold — nearly twice as fast 
as the population. 

This is the counting; now for the weighing. Has the 
increase in piety, in intelligence, in wealth, in missionary 
zeal, kept pace with this growth of numbers ? In many of 
these particulars, if not in all, it is possible to answer 
the question with an emphatic " yes." It is, in truth, 
speaking soberly, to say that the numerical increase of 
Baptists during the last fifty years is the least striking 
feature of their history. To present the subject with any 
approach to adequate fulness would require a volume; 
but it is possible, even within the limits of this chapter, 
to indicate the facts that warrant this assertion. 

Consider then, in the first place, the progress in edu- 
cation made by the denomination in fifty years. In 1850 
Baptists had in the East five institutions of collegiate 
grade: Brown University (1764), Waterville College, 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 367 

now Colby (1818), Madison University, now Colgate 
(chartered in 1846, but really founded in 18 19), Colum- 
bian University (1821), and Lewisburg University, now 
Bucknell (1846). Most of these names were prophecies, 
which have not yet been fulfilled; there was not then, 
anywhere in the United States, an institution that de- 
served the name university. The combined buildings 
and endowments of the five institutions named would be 
considered in these days not too large a " plant " for 
one good academy. There were, in addition, two theo- 
logical seminaries — that at Hamilton (1817), and the 
Newton Theological Institution (1825). In the West 
and South there were sixteen other institutions x of nom- 
inally collegiate grade (several of which were not in re- 
ality above academic), all struggling to keep the breath 
of life within them, all practically unendowed. Possibly 
I have overlooked some institution that then had a name 
to live, but had little else, and soon ceased to have even 
that. There are no statistics of these schools, but it is 
hazarding little to say that the total invested funds of all 
would not have exceeded five hundred thousand dollars. 
There was at this time no theological institution in the 
West, but a theological department was maintained at 
several of the colleges for the instruction of candidates 
for the Baptist ministry. 2 

The provision for academic education was even more 
scanty in 1850. It is true that of existing Baptist acade- 
mies, nine were established prior to that year, and that an 
unknown number had been begun and had come to an 

1 These are: Baylor College and Baylor University (both 1845), Denison 
(1831), Franklin (1834), Georgetown (1829), Howard (1841), Kalamazoo 
(1833), Limestone (S. C, 1845), Mercer (1837), Richmond (1832), Shurt- 
leff (1827), Southern Female College (two of same name, both Ala., 1842, 
1843), Southwestern Baptist University (Tenn., 1845), Wake Forest (1843), 
William Jewell (1849). 

2 These have all been discontinued except the one at Shurtleff, but a 
new one has been lately established at Baylor. 



368 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

untimely end before that date, but in their beginnings 
at least most of these academies were private schools, 
and are not at the middle of the century to be reckoned 
among denominational facilities for education. 

The year 1850 marks the beginning of a really great 
work in the foundation and equipment of schools of learn- 
ing by Baptists. The following decade saw the estab- 
lishment of twenty-three colleges and two theological 
seminaries, beginning with the two institutions at Roch- 
ester. In the " sixties " three more seminaries were 
founded, thus completing the denominational provision 
for theological education, but only eight colleges were 
added, three of which were schools for the freedmen, 
established after the close of the Civil War. The last 
three decades have been the period of most rapid increase 
in educational facilities. The " seventies " saw the ad- 
dition of fourteen colleges, of which six were for the 
freedmen ; in the " eighties " twelve colleges were es- 
tablished, only one of which was for the Negro race; 
and fifteen colleges have been added during the last ten 
years, including the greatest of all Baptist institutions — 
the University of Chicago. 

But here again weighing is no less necessary than 
counting, for the mere multiplying of institutions is not 
necessarily educational progress. It is not needful to 
deny, rather would one affirm, that good judgment has 
not always been characteristic of those who brought 
these schools into being. But whatever lack of wisdom 
Baptists have shown in the founding of denominational 
colleges, the one thing that is not shown is lack of ap- 
preciation of the value of higher education. And there- 
fore, on the whole, a Baptist has no reason to be ashamed 
of the record. The zeal to found has in most cases been 
followed by the zeal to endow. Of the ninety-two schools 
of collegiate grade now existing, it is true that fifty-three 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 369 

are wholly without endowment; but on examination it 
proves that these are mainly of three classes: schools 
very recently founded, schools for the Freedmen, and 
Southern schools for young women — which last have al- 
ways depended for support on the tuition fees received 
from their patrons, like the " seminaries " for young 
women in the North. All but about half a dozen of the 
unendowed colleges come under one of these heads. 

But it is still true that the movement to secure ade- 
quate endowment for these institutions has been com- 
paratively recent. The earliest educational statistics are 
found in the Baptist Year-Book for 1872. According to 
this table, there were then nine theological schools (two 
of them departments in colleges), with endowments 
amounting to one million sixty-nine thousand dollars 
(an average of over one hundred and fifty thousand dol- 
lars each for the seminaries proper), and other prop- 
erty worth eight hundred and twenty-three thousand dol- 
lars. There were twenty-eight colleges, with a total en- 
dowment of two million three hundred and seventeen 
thousand nine hundred and fifty-four dollars (an average 
of less than one hundred thousand dollars each), and 
other property valued at two million six hundred and 
sixty-four thousand dollars. There is no report of aca- 
demic institutions, but such a report appears the fol- 
lowing year (1873). Thirty-one institutions are named 
(some of which have since been transferred to the col- 
legiate list), of which three had endowments aggregating 
but sixty-five thousand dollars, and the rest were utterly 
unendowed ; the whole number reporting property valued 
at one million two hundred and three thousand seven 
hundred dollars. 

The statistics for 1880 show an advance that is highly 
gratifying, but hardly surprising. There are now re- 
ported eight theological schools, with endowments of one 

Y 



37° A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

million three hundred and thirty-seven thousand eight 
hundred and twenty-six dollars, and property amounting 
to one million seven hundred and fifty-one thousand two 
hundred and four dollars; thirty-one colleges, with three 
million two hundred and forty-three thousand six hun- 
dred and forty dollars in endowments, and other prop- 
erty valued at seven million three hundred and thirty-six 
thousand and seventy-four dollars; forty-nine schools of 
academic grade, with four hundred and twenty-two thou- 
sand two hundred and thirty-five dollars endowment, and 
two million five hundred and seventy thousand one hun- 
dred dollars in other property. In the next decade the 
advance is yet more notable. In 1890 the tables show 
seven seminaries with endowments almost double those 
of 1872 (two million sixty-nine thousand eight hundred 
and one dollars), while the other property very little ex- 
ceeded that reported in 1872 (nine hundred and forty-six 
thousand one hundred and thirty-four dollars). This 
last rather surprising itenTproves, on analysis, to be due 
to more conservative estimates of the value of the prop- 
erty. For example, Newton reported buildings and other 
property to the value of four hundred thousand dollars 
in 1872, but in 1890 these are set down at only one hun- 
dred and twenty-six thousand three hundred dollars. 
There are also tabulated returns from thirty-one colleges, 
with endowments of five million five hundred and ninety- 
six thousand seven hundred and seventy-one dollars, and 
other property worth four million eight hundred and 
thirty-one thousand eight hundred dollars ; thirty-two 
schools for women only, having six hundred and sixty- 
eight thousand five hundred and seventy-seven dollars in 
endowment, and two million seventy-one thousand and 
thirty-eight dollars in general property ; forty-six acad- 
emies with seven hundred and fifty-eight thousand six 
hundred dollars endowments and one million eight 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 371 

hundred and sixty thousand nine hundred and eighteen 
dollars in property; besides seventeen schools for the 
Freedmen and Indians, with only nominal endowments, 
amounting in all to fifty-four thousand six hundred dol- 
lars, and other property valued at eight hundred and two 
thousand three hundred and twenty-five dollars. 

But it is in the last ten years that the really surprising 
progress has been made. The endowment of the sem- 
inaries has reached two million five hundred and eighty- 
six thousand and sixty-five dollars, and their other prop- 
erty is valued at two million two hundred and forty-four 
thousand and fifty-one dollars. Here the greatest in- 
crease has been in providing adequate material facilities, 
in buildings, libraries, etc. The universities and colleges 
now report endowments of fourteen million four hundred 
and forty-two thousand eight hundred and seven dollars, 
and other property to the amount of fifteen million two 
hundred and forty-nine thousand and fifty-eight dollars. 
Even subtracting the large sums credited to the Uni- 
versity of Chicago, it is found that both endowments and 
other property have been just about doubled during the 
past decade. The academies now have endowments of 
one million four hundred and fourteen thousand four 
hundred and seventy-three dollars, and other equipment 
worth three million four hundred and fourteen thousand 
four hundred and seventy-three dollars — sums inadequate, 
it is true, but marking an immense advance. 

It would be less than just not to point out that a chief 
factor in this progress has been the agency of the Ameri- 
can Baptist Education Society, organized in 1888, and 
the grants made through this society by a single Baptist, 
Mr. John D. Rockefeller. What he has given personally, 
and what his gifts have impelled others to contribute, 
together constitute the major part of the increased 
endowments of the past decade. 



37 2 A. SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Altogether, American Baptists have to-day invested in 
their educational institutions the enormous sum of forty- 
four million dollars, of which fully half is in productive 
endowments, and almost the whole of which is the ac- 
cumulation of the last fifty years. But not only has there 
been this great material development, the standard of 
education has also risen proportionately; educational 
ideals and educational methods are far higher than a 
generation ago — so much higher that work that made a 
man a valedictorian when some of us were students would 
not insure his graduation to-day. In all that constitutes 
a liberal education, as well as professional and technical, 
Brown University in the East and the University of 
Chicago in the West must now be reckoned as standing 
among the very first American universities. And Bap- 
tist colleges, attempting the less ambitious task of giving 
to young men only that course in the arts and sciences 
that is crowned by the baccalaureate degree, are to-day, 
as they have been from the first, fully abreast of the 
more famous institutions. Man for man, these colleges 
have always sent out graduates in every way as well 
equipped as those that have gone from the most re- 
nowned halls of learning; and in the hard push of life it 
has not often been their alumni who have gone to the wall. 

How far have the people taken advantage of these 
facilities? This may be quickly answered. In 1872 there 
were in all Baptist schools two thousand four hundred 
and fifty-seven students; in 1873 there were also four 
thousand two hundred and forty-seven academic students 
— making a total of six thousand seven hundred and four. 
In 1880 there were nine thousand five hundred and 
twenty-four; in 1890 the number had risen to twenty 
thousand five hundred and forty-one, while in 1900 it is 
reported as thirty-eight thousand and twenty. Nothing 
can be more gratifying than to see the eagerness of the 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 373 

youth of our denomination, and outside of it, to take ad- 
vantage of the increased facilities for education that have 
been provided. If so much space has been given to edu- 
cational development, it is because this is really the most 
impressive thing in the Baptist history of the past fifty 
years. 

It is time to give our attention to the advance in mis- 
sionary zeal that has marked the same period. Let us 
first consider the progress of foreign missions, so far as it 
is marked by definite results. In 1850 there were in Bap- 
tist Asiatic missions sixty-nine churches, with seven thou- 
sand five hundred and twenty-one members ; by i860 they 
had increased to two hundred and seventy-eight churches, 
with fifteen thousand six hundred and fourteen members ; 
in 1870 these had become three hundred and seventy-two 
churches, and eighteen thousand seven hundred and forty 
members; in 1890 there were seven hundred and forty- 
three churches and seventy-five thousand eight hundred 
and forty-four members — a rate of increase seldom, if 
ever, paralleled in the history of the denomination; and 
for 1900 the figures are: churches, eight hundred and 
forty-four; members, one hundred and fifteen thousand 
nine hundred and twenty-nine. In recent years African 
missions have been added, with twelve churches and one 
thousand nine hundred and twenty-five members. This 
survey does not include missions to the nominally Chris- 
tion lands of Europe. In 1850 there were in such mis- 
sions fifty-nine churches and three thousand and thirty- 
eight members, of which number two thousand eight hun- 
dred were in Germany, where ten times that number of 
Baptists are now reported — viz., twenty-eight thousand 
six hundred and forty-one. Since that time there have 
been many fluctuations in the fortunes of these missions, 
some having been abandoned altogether, others pursued 
fitfully, so that comparison by decades would be 



374 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

misleading without elaborate explanation of the figures. 
Suffice it to say, that in 1900 there are reported in con- 
nection with European Baptist missions nine hundred and 
fifty-one churches and one hundred and five thousand one 
hundred and seventeen members. 

If we consider the advance in the annual gifts of the 
denomination for this work, as a practical mark of in- 
crease in zeal, results are not greatly different. 'In 1850 
the total receipts of the A. B. M. U. were eighty-seven 
thousand five hundred and thirty-seven dollars; in i860 
they had risen to one hundred and thirty-two thousand 
four hundred and twenty-six dollars; in 1870 they were 
one hundred and ninety-six thousand eight hundred and 
ninety-seven dollars; and in 1880, two hundred and fifty- 
two thousand six hundred and seventy-seven dollars. 
Then there was a great leap to four hundred and fifteen 
thousand one hundred and forty-four dollars in 1890, 
which has become six hundred and twenty-six thousand 
eight hundred and forty-four dollars in 1900. 

In five decades, therefore, the members of these mis- 
sionary churches have doubled nearly four times, and the 
income of the Society has doubled three times. In the 
same period the supporters of the Society have hardly 
doubled twice. The growth of the denomination in mis- 
sionary zeal, and in the fruitfulness of its work, has far 
outstripped its progress in mere numbers. It is doubt- 
less true that much more might have been accomplished, 
but the bitter reproaches of their denomination in which 
writers and speakers sometimes indulge might well be 
softened in view of these facts. 

If now we turn to home missions, we meet the initial 
difficulty that it is not possible to compute numerically 
the results of this work on the growth of the denomina- 
tion, because the churches established by the agency of 
this Society have soon taken their places in the regular 




Page 374 



The Haystack Monument 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 375 

statistical column of the denomination, and have no longer 
been reckoned separately. We can for the most part 
only apply the financial tests, and assume a fairly con- 
stant rate of fruitfulness. In 1850 the total income of the 
American Baptist Home Mission Society was twenty- 
five thousand two hundred and one dollars; by i860 it 
had nearly doubled — forty-four thousand six hundred and 
seventy-eight dollars ; but after the Civil War a great 
advance was made, largely on account of the new in- 
terest felt in the freedmen's work, and the income became 
one hundred and forty-four thousand and thirty-two dol- 
lars. Since then a constant and large rate of increase 
has been maintained: in 1880 the income rose to two 
hundred and seventeen thousand and ninety-three dollars ; 
by 1890 it became three hundred and seventy-five thou- 
sand two hundred and fifty-four dollars, and in 1900 it 
is returned at four hundred and sixty-one thousand eight 
hundred and one dollars. In 1850 there were one hun- 
dred and ten laborers employed, a number that has grad- 
ually risen to one thousand and ninety-two. In the fifty 
years just closed, four thousand six hundred and five 
churches have been organized by the agents of this So- 
ciety — nearly one-tenth of the net increase of Baptist 
churches in the whole United States during that period. 
The special work of Baptist women for missions has 
been a development of the last thirty years. In 1871 
the Women's Baptist Foreign Missionary Societies were 
organized, one for the East, with headquarters at Bos- 
ton; one for the West, with headquarters at Chicago. 
Both societies have sustained auxiliary relations with the 
Missionary Union — the women nominating missionaries 
and designating funds, the Union appointing the mis- 
sionaries and disbursing the funds. Similar relations to 
the Home Mission Society are sustained by the Women's 
Baptist Home Mission Society of the East, formed in 



376 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

1877, with headquarters at Boston; but the like society 
for the West, formed the same year, and having its head- 
quarters at Chicago, has from the first maintained a com- 
plete independence, making its own appointments and 
managing its own affairs. This last society maintains a 
missionary training school. It was prophesied that the 
formation of these separate societies for women would 
divide missionary interest and divert funds from the 
older societies. Experience shows that whatever may be 
accomplished in this direction finds ample compensation 
in the general increase of intelligent interest in missions, 
and the consequent growth of contributions to all causes. 

Thus far facts have been given relating only to the op- 
erations of our Northern societies. Similar facts are not 
accessible regarding the work done by the Southern Bap- 
tist Convention. No statistics regarding foreign missions 
have been discovered prior to 1890, in which year there 
were one thousand three hundred and thirty-eight mem- 
bers reported, which have increased in a single decade 
to five thousand three hundred and forty-seven. The 
receipts of the Foreign Mission Board regularly increased 
up to 1890, when they reached one hundred and forty- 
nine thousand five hundred and eighty-four dollars ; since 
then there has been a decided falling off every year (one 
hundred and nine thousand two hundred and sixty-seven 
dollars reported in 1900). The Home Mission Board re- 
ported contributions of sixteen thousand two hundred 
dollars in 1880, sixty-nine thousand three hundred and 
ninety-eight dollars in 1890, and sixty-one thousand two 
hundred dollars in 1900. Inasmuch as the work only 
began in 1850, and was not vigorously prosecuted before 
1880, the ratio of increase in the missionary operations 
of the Southern churches shows an excess over that of 
the Northern societies. 

This has been a period also of expansion, in many 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 377 

directions, in the Society's work. In 1852 the church edi- 
fice department was established, at first with the object 
of making loans exclusively to churches in the West, but 
since 1881, gifts outright have been made in the larger 
number of cases. By the close of the century, over two 
thousand churches had been aided, about seventeen hun- 
dred of these within the past twenty years. The growth 
of educational work among the freedmen since the Civil 
War has already been described. The eleven schools con- 
trolled by the Society have buildings and equipment val- 
ued at over a million dollars, and productive endowment 
amounting to over two hundred and eighty-six thousand 
dollars. Missions have been established and are main- 
tained among our various foreign-born citizens, those es- 
pecially flourishing being among the French of New Eng- 
land, the Germans, Scandinavians, Italians, and Spanish. 
A mission to Mexico was begun in 1870, which has had a 
fair degree of success and promises to accomplish much 
more. The acquisition of Porto Rico and our intimate 
relations with Cuba opened new and interesting fields just 
as the century closed, which the twentieth century will see 
occupied and developed. 

Though the American Baptist Publication Society was 
founded as a tract society as early as 1824, and reorgan- 
ized as a general publishing house in 1840, almost the 
whole of its labors belong to the period under considera- 
tion. The active history of the Society begins with its ac- 
quisition of a building in Arch Street, Philadelphia, in 
1850, and the election of Benjamin Griffith as secretary 
in 1857 marks a further step forward. Thenceforward 
progress was rapid. In 1869 the prosperity of the busi- 
ness warranted the establishment of branches in the prin- 
cipal cities, to which others have since been added. Other 
events of great importance were the beginning of the 
chapel-car work in 1891, the erection of the new printing 



3?8 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

house in 1896, and the completion of the fine main build- 
ing in 1898. 1 There have been over two thousand eight 
hundred publications issued by the Society, of which 
eight hundred and twelve million copies have been 
printed. From the profits of the business, two hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars has been paid to the missionary 
department, which has received and expended altogether 
three million three hundred and forty-three thousand dol- 
lars. The colporters and missionaries thus employed 
have been instrumental in the organizing of eleven thou- 
sand five hundred and sixty-one Sunday-schools and one 
thousand three hundred and fifteen churches. The total 
assets of the Society have increased during the fifty years 
from almost nothing to a million and a half, and its an- 
nual transactions amount to little short of a million 
dollars. 

Has the denomination increased in wealth as rapidly as 
in numbers during the half-century? We have inade- 
quate means of answering this question with the definite- 
ness desirable, since facts of the sort required were not 
recorded until a comparatively late day. The first at- 
tempt to gather and tabulate the general financial statistics 
of the denomination was made in the Year-Book for 
1880. A good measure of the increase of denominational 
wealth is the valuation of church property. In 1885 this 
was twenty-six million six hundred and eighty-five thou- 
sand nine hundred and fifty-nine dollars; in 1890 the 
figures rose to fifty-eight million one hundred and sixty- 
two thousand three hundred and sixty-seven dollars — part 
of which increase was doubtless due to the better gath- 
ering of the facts. In 1900 there is reported eighty- 
six million six hundred and forty-eight thousand nine 

1 This building has since been sold, at a large profit to the Society, and 
a new structure will be erected in the near future, still better adapted to 
the business and missionary needs of the Society. 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 379 

hundred and eighty-two dollars. Another fair measure 
is the annual expenditure in maintaining public worship. 
This in 1885 was four million seven hundred and two 
thousand three hundred and eighty-one dollars; in 1890 
it was six million nine hundred thousand two hundred 
and sixty-six dollars; and for 1900 the figures are nine 
million six hundred and twenty-two thousand and sixty- 
six dollars. Another measure of wealth, as well as of 
zeal, is the total contributions for missionary purposes : 
in 1885, six hundred and sixty-one thousand one hundred 
and sixty-six dollars; in 1890, one million ninety-two 
thousand five hundred and seventy-one dollars; and in 
1900, one million one hundred and twenty-three thousand 
eight hundred and thirty-nine dollars. The totals of con- 
tributions for all purposes will be regarded by many as the 
most satisfactory test of relative ability to give. In 1885 
these were six million five hundred and seventy-nine thou- 
sand eight hundred and seventy-two dollars; in 1890, ten 
million one hundred and ninety-nine thousand two hun- 
dred and fifty-nine dollars ; and in 1900, twelve million 
three hundred and forty-eight thousand five hundred and 
twenty-seven dollars. Allowing for the imperfect gath- 
ering of facts at first, it would appear that the property 
of the denomination has tripled within fifteen years, while 
its annual contributions for all purposes have more than 
doubled. In the same time the membership has increased 
about sixty per cent. Applying every practicable test, 
we come to the conclusion that the denomination has 
increased in wealth fully twice as fast as in numbers. 

The close of this half-century sees Baptists not only 
greater, richer, wiser, better organized, but more united, 
than at any previous time in their history. It sees them 
also enjoying greatly improved relations with other de- 
nominations — convictions respected, distinctive principles 
better understood, and in cases not a few, tacitly admitted 



380 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

or even accepted. Controversy has nearly disappeared, 
jealousy is less frequently manifested. Mutual respect, 
comity, co-operation, are the rule; and if the organic 
union of all Christians, of which some have prophesied, 
must be regarded by the sober-minded as " such stuff as 
dreams are made on," some form of federation in evan- 
gelistic and missionary effort is certainly one of the 
possibilities of the present century. 

Certain counter-currents ought not to be overlooked in 
this study of Baptist progress. The unity of the denom- 
ination in its doctrinal and practical teaching has been 
the boast of its members and the wonder of others. Ap- 
parently a rope of sand, each church independent of every 
other in theory, and to a great extent in practice, it has 
not been the inferior in coherence of bodies that have 
a strong centralized government. The reason of this is 
not far to seek: it has been the close adherence of the 
Baptist churches to their understanding of the teaching 
of the Scriptures, and their loyal acceptance of this teach- 
ing as the supreme authority in all matters of religion. 
It is not putting it too strongly to say that Baptists from 
the beginning of their separate history have been fully 
conscious that they had no justification for a separate 
existence except this loyalty to what they believed the 
Scriptures to teach, and their conviction that the teach- 
ing of the Scriptures must be followed at all cost. But 
the last decades of the closing century have seen a very 
considerable weakening among them of this conviction, 
some important modifications of their understanding of 
what the Scriptures are and what they teach. If this 
weakening should become general, there cannot fail to be 
a great denominational disintegration. The historian can 
only record what has been and what is ; to tell what shall 
be is the office of the prophet. 

As has already been implied, there has been a decline 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 38 1 

in the discipline maintained among Baptist churches, as 
serious as it is great. In the majority of churches in 
the cities, exclusions are practically unknown except for 
some notorious wickedness. Even in cases of notorious 
wickedness, there is often complete immunity for the of- 
fender. Little serious attempt is made to exercise over- 
sight of the lives of members, and to hold them to account- 
ability for departures from even a moderate standard of 
Christian ethics. The place of exclusion has been taken 
by a new practice, called " dropping," by which is meant 
the simple erasure of a name from the roll of member- 
ship, no stigma of any kind attaching to the person so 
dropped, with no inquiry, no charges, and of course no 
examination or trial. This growing practice threatens to 
become universal in much less than another half-century, 
with results on the spiritual efficiency of the churches 
and the personal piety of their members that cannot fail 
to be most disastrous. Nothing can explain such disuse 
of discipline but a general weakening of moral fiber. 
This is an alarming phenomenon, and goes far to offset 
all that has been recorded of material and spiritual 
progress. 

There has been a notable change in the character of 
preaching, and in the methods of church work, during the 
past fifty years. In these things, however, Baptists are in 
no way peculiar ; they have but shared in the change that 
has come over American Christianity as a whole, and it is 
only the conservative that views all change with alarm 
who will see necessary evil in this change. One impor- 
tant result is, however, worthy of specific mention. Owing 
to the increasing infrequency of revivals, and the decline 
of the older evangelism, the majority of the converts are 
now received into the churches through the Sunday- 
school and the young people's society ; the conversion of 
adults becomes with every decade increasingly rare. It 



382 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

is yet too soon to measure the effects of this great change 
upon denominational life and character. 

Another striking result of the past fifty years has been 
the great development of the denominational societies. 
These, nominally the creatures and servants of the 
churches, have become in fact great independent corpora- 
tions that control the churches, so far as their united 
efforts in missionary and educational enterprises are con- 
cerned. The annual meetings of these societies are in 
theory composed of delegations from the supporting 
churches; in fact, they are mass meetings composed of 
any who care to attend. The officials seldom have any 
trouble in directing such a meeting into any channel 
agreeable to them. The officials are men of high char- 
acter and practical wisdom, and the affairs of the corpora- 
tions have been most wisely managed; but the inevitable 
result of the system has been a growing estrangement 
of the churches from the societies and the work that they 
represent. Year by year the difficulty becomes greater, 
and just how it is to be surmounted is the greatest prob- 
lem the Baptist denomination has at present to solve. 
A sentiment is growing in favor of the unification of 
Baptist societies into something resembling the old Tri- 
ennial Convention, and the making of this Convention 
a strictly delegated body, so that all the denominational 
enterprises shall be once more, in fact and not in theory 
only, subordinated to the churches. Whether this senti- 
ment will prevail is one of the questions that the 
twentieth century must be left to decide. 

What manner of men ought they to be who have en- 
tered upon the great opportunities of the twentieth cen- 
tury, the inheritors of such a history? What boundless 
possibilities of growth, of achievement, lie before them ! 
How much Baptists may and should do to hasten the 
coming of the kingdom of God ! How great will be 



THE LAST FIFTY YEARS 383 

their condemnation if, having this wealth of opportunity 
in their hands, they squander it selfishly, or slothfully 
fail to make of the ten talents intrusted to them other 
ten that they may present with joy to their Lord at his 
coming ! 



CHAPTER XXIV 

BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES — IRREGULAR BAPTIST 
BODIES 

THUS far we have considered only the " Regular " 
Baptists in the United States. There are numerous 
other bodies that agree with these " Regular " Baptists 
in their fundamental doctrine of the constitution of the 
church and the nature of baptism. Any Christian body 
that practises believers' baptism — meaning by " baptism " 
immersion, and by " believer " one who gives credible 
evidence of regeneration — is fundamentally Baptist, by 
whatever name it may be called, or whatever may be its 
oddities of doctrine or practice in other respects. 

The earliest of the irregular Baptist bodies — and the 
term " irregular " is used simply as a distinguishing 
epithet, with no idea of disparagement — are various or- 
ganizations that differ somewhat among themselves, but 
agree in holding an Arminian theology. The first of 
these to become definitely organized were the Six-prin- 
ciple Baptists. They have existed in Rhode Island from 
1639, some of the original members of the church founded 
at Providence by Roger Williams seemingly having been 
of that persuasion. From 1670 they have held a definite 
standing, and, as we have seen, their yearly meeting in 
New England was the second organization of the kind 
to be formed. A second yearly meeting or Association 
was afterward formed in Pennsylvania, where it still ex- 
ists, with a membership of five churches. In all, this 
body has but eighteen churches and not a thousand 
members. 
384 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 385 

In 1729 a number of Baptist churches in North Caro- 
lina that held Arminian notions joined in an Association. 
Some of these afterward became " Regular," and the rest 
were popularly known as " Freewillers." This name was 
accepted after a time as a fitting one, and still later, to 
distinguish themselves from other bodies of like name, 
they called themselves Original Freewill Baptists. Their 
Confession of Faith is distinctly Arminian, not merely in 
asserting that Christ tasted death for every man, but that 
all men, at one time or another, are found in such ca- 
pacity as that, through the grace of God, they may be 
eternally saved. They also hold that God has not de- 
creed the salvation or condemnation of any " out of re- 
spect or mere choice," but has appointed the godly unto 
life and the ungodly who die in sin unto death. They 
practise the washing of the saints' feet and the anoint- 
ing of the sick with oil, as perpetual ordinances of the 
gospel. A plural eldership is also a feature of their 
churches. There are three annual conferences, which 
have more power than the regular Association, since they 
can try and " silence " preachers and settle difficulties 
between the churches. They had in 1890 in the two 
Carolinas one hundred and sixty-seven churches and 
eleven thousand eight hundred and sixty-four members. 

The body better known as Freewill Baptists dates, as 
a separate organization, from 1780, when Benjamin Ran- 
dall organized the first church of this order at New 
Durham, N. H. He had been converted under the preach- 
ing of Whiteneld, and was at first a Congregationalist, 
but adopted Baptist views and joined a Regular Baptist 
church. Before this he had begun to preach the gospel 
with much acceptance and power. In his preaching he 
declared that God was not willing that any should perish, 
that a full atonement had been made for the sins of all, 
and that every man might, if he would, come to Christ — 
z 



386 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

such doctrine as every successful evangelist has preached. 
But the Baptists of his time and region were of the 
straitest sect of Calvinism and would have none of this 
theology. In a brief time Mr. Randall found himself 
practically disfellowshiped, though he was never formally 
excluded by his church. In 1780 he was ordained by two 
Baptist ministers who shared his views, and the new de- 
nomination began. It rapidly extended in New Eng- 
land, and in 1841 the Free-communion Baptists of New 
York united with this body. Before this, in 1827, a Gen- 
eral Conference had been organized, which formerly met 
triennially, but of late years holds biennial meetings. 
During the anti-slavery agitation the Freewill Baptists 
took strong ground in favor of abolition, and declined 
overtures for union made by about twelve thousand Bap- 
tists of Kentucky, because the latter favored slavery. 
The Freewill Baptist Foreign Mission Society was or- 
ganized in 1833, an d has a vigorous mission in India. 
A Home Mission Society was formed in 1834, and an 
Education Society in 1840. The denomination sustains 
Hillsdale College, in Michigan; Bates College, in Maine; 
besides numerous schools of academic grade. It also has 
a publishing house, formerly located at Dover, N. H., 
but now at Boston, Mass. The official name of the body 
was changed some years ago to Free Baptists, though 
they are still usually called by the old and better-known 
name. Their numbers are now under ninety thousand. 
The old asperities of theological difference have been 
greatly softened, and many suggestions have been made 
in recent years for the union of the Free and " Regular " 
Baptists. Thus far possibly the chief barrier against 
such union has been the teaching of the Free Baptists 
that participation in the Lord's Supper is the " privilege 
and duty of all who have spiritual union with Christ," 
and " no man has a right to forbid these tokens to the 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 387 

least of his disciples." No other Christian body has, in 
its official confessions, declared that the unbaptized have 
either right or duty to participate in the Lord's Supper. 

The rise of the Separate Baptists, in connection with 
the Whitefield revivals, has already been told. They 
were also known as Free-communion Baptists. In the 
Northern States they have been largely absorbed by the 
Free Baptists, and in the South most of them reunited 
after a time with the Regular Baptists. Two Associa- 
tions in the South, which still retain the name Separate, 
are counted with the Regular Baptists, but a single As- 
sociation in Indiana still refuses any fellowship with the 
Regular Baptist churches. There are twenty-four 
churches in this Association, which had one thousand 
five hundred and ninety-nine members in 1890. When 
the " Separates " and " Old Lights " united in the South 
they assumed the name of United Baptists at first. For 
the most part this name was gradually dropped, and the 
United Baptists became simply Baptists and are reckoned 
with the " Regulars." But in a number of States (Ala- 
bama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee) there 
are still churches and Associations that retain the name 
United and hold aloof from all other organizations. In 
1890 there were two hundred and four churches of this 
order and thirteen thousand two hundred and nine mem- 
bers. The terms of the union provided that the teaching 
of a general atonement should be no bar to communion, 
but most of the United Baptists are Calvinistic in the- 
ology. They hold that feet-washing should be practised 
by all believers. 

In 1824 an Association called the Liberty was organ- 
ized in Kentucky, composed of churches holding Ar- 
minian views, but practising strict communion. In 1830 
they adopted the practice of open communion, and in 
1845 so revised their articles of faith as to make them 



388 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

more unmistakably Arminian. Churches of this order 
were rapidly organized in the neighboring States, es- 
pecially Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and everywhere 
bore the name of General Baptists. The connection of 
this body with those of the same name in England is 
shadowy, if not impossible to trace. In 1870 a General 
Association was formed that represents three hundred 
and ninety-nine churches in seven Western and Southern 
States, with a membership of twenty-one thousand three 
hundred and sixty-two. 

There are also a number of Calvinistic Baptist bodies 
that for one reason or another decline fellowship 
with the Regular Baptists. A considerable number 
of Baptists in the early part of this century sep- 
arated from the other churches on account of doctrinal 
and practical differences. Holding a hyper-Calvinistic 
theology, they were opposed to missions, Sunday-schools, 
and all " contrivances which seem to make the salvation 
of men depend on human effort." These differences 
may have been latent from an earlier time, but they first 
began to manifest themselves actively about 1830, and 
from 1835 onward they produced schisms in many 
churches and Associations. They call themselves Primi- 
tive Baptists, and have been called by others " Anti- 
mission," " Old School," and " Hard-shell " Baptists. 
Their Associations decline fellowship with any church 
that supports any " missionary, Bible, tract, or Sunday- 
school union society or advocates State Conventions or 
theological schools." Washing of the saints' feet they 
hold to be an ordinance of the gospel to be continued 
until Christ's second coming. They have churches in 
twenty-eight States, and are strong in the country dis- 
tricts of Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Kentucky, 
and Tennessee. There has been an impression until late 
years that they had become a feeble body, rapidly on the 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 389 

way to extinction. Such is undoubtedly the case in the 
North, but in the South they seem to be not merely 
holding their own, but increasing. In 1890 they had three 
thousand two hundred and twenty-two churches and one 
hundred and twenty-one thousand three hundred and 
forty-seven members. 

Even more fiercely Calvinistic are the Old Two-seed- 
in-the-Spirit Predestinarian Baptists, who are said to owe 
their origin to the curious theology of Elder Daniel 
Parker, a Baptist minister who labored in the States of 
Tennessee and Illinois from 1806 to 1836. Parker taught 
that part of Eve's offspring were the seed of God and 
elect to eternal life ; part were the seed of Satan and fore- 
ordained to the kingdom of eternal darkness. By the 
divine decree all events whatever, from the creation to the 
final consummation, were foreordained, so that nothing 
can interfere with or change his plans. Many of these 
Baptists object to a paid ministry, and they agree with the 
Primitive Baptists in reprobation of all " modern insti- 
tutions," including theological schools. They practise 
feet- washing. In 1890 they had four hundred and sev- 
enty-three churches and twelve thousand eight hundred 
and fifty-one members, distributed through twenty-four 
States. They are strongest in Kentucky, Arkansas, and 
Texas. 

The Baptist Church of Christ seems to have originated 
in Tennessee, where the oldest organizations were formed 
in 1808, and where more than half the membership is 
still found. From this center they have spread to six 
other States, and in 1890 had one hundred and fifty -two 
churches and eight thousand two hundred and fifty- 
four members. They are mildly Calvinistic and practise 
feet-washing. 

The Seventh-day Baptists had their origin in Rhode 
Island, a church being founded at Newport in 1671 by 



390 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Stephen Mumford, who had been- a Sabbatarian Baptist 
in England. A General Conference was organized early 
in the present century, which has met triennially since 
1846. They formed a foreign missionary society in 1842, 
and support a tract and publishing house. Their head- 
quarters are at Alfred Center, N. Y. Here they maintain 
a college, while another is located at Milton, Wis. They 
have one hundred and twelve churches, and over nine 
thousand members. German immigrants, settling at what 
is now Germantown, Pa., in 1723, formed the first Ger- 
man Seventh-day Baptist church. According to the 
census of 1890, there were then one hundred and six 
churches of this order in twenty-four States, and nine 
thousand one hundred and forty-three members. The 
Seventh-day Baptists are strongest in New York, one- 
fourth of the churches and one-third of the members 
being found in that State. 

Thus far all of the irregular Baptist bodies that we have 
considered embody the word Baptist in their official titles. 
There are a number of other bodies, called by various 
names, that accept the fundamental principle of believers' 
baptism. The most important of these is a body that 
calls itself simply " The Brethren," but is usually called 
Dunkards, sometimes Tunkers, and occasionally " Ger- 
man Baptists " ; but they are not to be confounded with 
the regular German Baptists. The Dunkards originated 
in Schwartzenau, Germany, about 1708. To escape per- 
secution they emigrated to Pennsylvania, where they set- 
tled in considerable numbers from 1719 to 1730, and 
have prospered greatly in numbers and wealth. They 
hold in the main the same doctrines as the " Regular " 
Baptists, but add some peculiarities of practice, chief 
among which is trine immersion. The candidate kneels 
in the water, and is immersed forwards at the naming of 
each person of the Trinity in the baptismal formula. 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 39 1 

They have an ordained ministry, but pay ministers no 
salary, regarding even the receiving of fees with great 
disfavor. They oppose Sunday-schools and secret so- 
cieties; practise feet-washing as a religious ordinance; 
interpreting literally the words of the apostle in I Cor. 
16 : 20, they " greet one another with a holy kiss." They 
bore consistent testimony against slavery, and are now 
active advocates of total abstinence. They were for a 
time inclined to regard higher education as conforming 
to the world, but they have now several colleges and high 
schools in which co-education is practised. They still 
oppose the establishment of theological schools and sem- 
inaries, but some of their ministers are educated in other 
institutions. Owing to differences of various kinds, 
chiefly about matters of discipline, they have become 
broken into four separate bodies, one of which observes 
the seventh day. In 1890 there were nine hundred and 
eighty-nine churches. 

The Winebrennerians, or " Church of God," owe their 
origin to the labors of Rev. John Winebrenner, who in 
the year 1820 was settled as pastor of the German Re- 
formed Church at Harrisburg, Pa. A great revival of 
religion began among his people, and the work aroused 
much opposition in the church, which looked unfavorably 
upon such manifestations of abnormal excitement (as 
they viewed revivals). After five years of conflict, Mr. 
Winebrenner and his people separated from the German 
Reformed Church and formed an independent congrega- 
tion. About this time similar revivals occurred in the 
surrounding towns, and resulted in the organization of 
new churches. In the meantime. Mr. Winebrenner had 
been studying the Scriptures, and came to the conclusion 
that neither in doctrine nor in discipline did the German 
Reformed Church correspond to the apostolic model, 
which he now conceived to be independent churches, 



392 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

composed only of believers, and without any human 
creed or laws, the Scriptures alone being accepted as the 
rule of faith and practice. In October, 1830, a meeting 
was held at Harrisburg, at which a regular system of 
co-operation was adopted by the churches sympathizing 
with these views, and Mr. Winebrenner was elected 
speaker of the Conference. This body now meets annu- 
ally, and fourteen other Conferences or annual elderships 
have since been organized, besides a general eldership that 
meets triennially. The Church of God has an itinerant 
ministry, the appointments being made by the respective 
elderships ; they practise feet-washing as a religious ordi- 
nance, recognize only immersion of believers as baptism, 
and hold that the Lord's Supper should be administered 
to Christians only, in a sitting posture, and always in the 
evening. The church has a publishing house at Harris- 
burg, an academy at Bosheyville, Pa., and a college at 
Findlay, Ohio. In 1890 they had four hundred and 
seventy-nine churches and twenty-two thousand five hun- 
dred and eleven members, and were represented in fifteen 
States. 

The River Brethren, probably of Mennonite origin, 
settled in eastern Pennsylvania, near the Susquehanna 
River, about 1750; from their baptizing in that river they 
gained their name. They practise trine immersion and 
feet-washing; and in the doctrines of non-resistance and 
non-conformity to the world they resemble the Friends 
as well as the Mennonites. There are now three divisions 
of the River Brethren. In 1890 there were one hundred 
and eleven churches and three thousand four hundred 
and twenty-seven members, and they have spread from 
Pennsylvania into eight other States. 

Several other bodies practise adult immersion, though 
they are not in all cases scrupulous about requiring evi- 
dence of regeneration. The Adventists arose from the 



BAPTISTS IN THE UNITED STATES 393 

teachings of William Miller, before described, and are al- 
ready broken into six sects or groups, with a total 
strength of over sixty thousand. The Christadelphians 
have some affinity with Adventists, but reject the doctrine 
of the Trinity, though believing Christ to be the Son of 
God. They are a small body of about twelve hundred 
members. The Christians or Christian Connection orig- 
inated about 1806, in several independent movements, and 
are very like the Disciples of Christ in doctrine and prac- 
tice. They have no formal creeds, but practise immersion 
of believers only ; and while no one type of theology pre- 
vails among them, their teachers nearly all oppose Cal- 
vinism. Their polity is mainly congregational, though 
they have annual Conferences, composed of ministers 
and lay delegates, which receive and ordain their preach- 
ers. A General Convention, meeting every four years, 
has charge of their missionary and educational work. 
In 1890 there were seventy-five conferences, one thousand 
two hundred and eighty-one churches, and ninety thou- 
sand seven hundred and eighteen members. The Social 
Brethren is a body that originated in Arkansas and 
Illinois about 1867, from Baptist and Methodist churches, 
and partakes of the peculiarities of both denominations. 
These Brethren reject infant baptism, but agree with the 
Methodists in permitting a candidate to choose between 
immersion, pouring, and sprinkling. It is said that im- 
mersion is chosen in the majority of cases. In 1890 they 
had twenty churches and nine hundred and thirteen mem- 
bers. These last-named bodies are mentioned, less be- 
cause they have genuine affinity with Baptists than to 
answer questions continually coming to the author from 
readers of this history, about the doctrines and practices 
of these denominations. 



CHAPTER XXV 

BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 

MEN still living can remember the beginning of a 
new Baptist history in Europe. In 1832 the Tri- 
ennial Convention established a mission in France, under 
the direction of Prof. Irah Chase, of the Newton Theo- 
logical Institution. A Baptist chapel was opened in Paris 
by Rev. J. C. Rostan, a Frenchman who had for some 
years been a resident of the United States. He died of 
cholera the following year, and Rev. Isaac Willmarth, 
a recent graduate of Newton Theological Institution, was 
sent out to take charge of the work. Before the coming 
of these men, there were a few earnest persons who had 
learned the truth from the New Testament and sought to 
follow its teachings, ignorant that any people in the 
world held similar views. A church was organized in 
1835, of six members, and the following year the first 
native pastor, Rev. Joseph Thieffry, was ordained. He 
labored in the north of France until his death, at an 
advanced age, choosing that field of labor because there 
were in existence there churches holding substantially the 
principles of Baptists, though often defective in organiza- 
tion, and holding various errors of doctrine. By 1838 
there were seven churches and one hundred and forty-two 
members connected with the mission. 

When the mission was begun, the opportunity was 
thought to be especially favorable. The revolution that 
had placed Louis Philippe on the throne had done much 
to lessen the hold of the Church of Rome on the French 
people, it was believed. But it soon turned out that 
394 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 395 

the " citizen king " was as thoroughly priestridden as any 
Bourbon, and the Baptists met with continued and bitter 
persecution. At Genlis, where a member had built a 
church on his own estate, the magistrate would not per- 
mit it to be opened for eleven years. Every preacher or 
colporter was liable to arrest, and punishment by fine or 
imprisonment; and against many of them the law was 
rigorously enforced. The legislative chambers made it a 
penal offense for any association of more than twenty 
persons to meet for religious worship without the con- 
sent of the government, and punished any one who per- 
mitted his house to be used for such an assemblage, by 
a fine of sixteen to two hundred francs. Wealthy friends 
in New York paid these fines, and for several years it 
was found expedient to print reports from the mission 
with blank spaces for names and places, to spare these 
brethren persecution. The revolution of 1848 drove 
Louis Philippe from the throne and established a re- 
public. The new constitution declared religious liberty, 
though this principle was qualified by the proviso that 
such liberty could be allowed only to organizations rec- 
ognized by law. Toleration, however, speedily became 
an accomplished fact, and serious persecution has never 
since been known. 

The church first formed in Paris was scattered during 
these times of civil turmoil and religious persecution. It 
was reorganized by Rev. T. T. Devan in 1850 with four 
members, and in spite of many obstacles, continued to 
grow until, in 1863, it numbered eighty-four members. 
In 1872 the church built, with generous assistance from 
England and America, a neat and commodious chapel. 
Mr. Devan also organized a church in Lyons, in 1852, 
and other churches were gradually added. The estab- 
lishment of the McAll mission in France greatly helped 
the growth of the Baptist churches, and at length one of 



39^ A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the best workers of that mission, Rev. Reuben Saillens, 
withdrew and devoted himself to the Baptist ministry. 
The second church in Paris was founded by him, and his 
evangelistic labors in many parts of the country have 
been and still are very fruitful. 

The only American workers since 1856 have been those 
connected with the establishment of the theological 
school in Paris, which was begun in 1879 by Rev. Edward 
C. Mitchell, and continued after 1883 by Rev. Henri An- 
dru. Quite a number of the younger French Baptist min- 
isters are graduates of this school, and their labors should 
be of the greatest aid in the future growth of the Bap- 
tists of France. In the last report available there are 
said to be forty-five churches, with thirty-five ordained 
ministers, and two thousand and forty-eight members ; 
and two hundred and eighty were baptized during the 
year. 

The name Baptist has been an epithet of scorn and 
contempt in Germany for centuries. The German people 
have never been able or willing to forget the disorders 
at Miilhausen and Miinster during the sixteenth century, 
the blame for which was unjustly laid upon the Anabap- 
tists of that period. For a man to profess himself a 
Baptist in that country is, therefore, to suggest that he 
is likely to believe in propagating the kingdom of Christ 
by the sword, in communism, polygamy, and various 
other horrifying things. In spite of this deep-seated 
prejudice, Germany is precisely the country of Europe 
where Baptists have during the past century made 
their most rapid, most healthful, and most permanent 
advances. This is because the movement originated on 
German soil and with German people — not by the agency 
of a foreign missionary. 

The leader in this work was Johann Gerhardt 
Oncken, who was born at Varel, in Oldenburg, in 1800. 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 397 

In his fourteenth year a Scottish merchant took him to 
Great Britain, and there he was converted, after which 
he joined a Congregational church. The Continental 
Society was founded in London in 1819, for the propa- 
gation of evangelical religion in Europe. Mr. Oncken 
had a great desire to preach the gospel among his own 
people, and in 1823 he was sent to Germany as a mis- 
sionary of this Society. He began to preach the gospel 
in Hamburg and Bremen with great success. Many were 
converted, but the bitter hostility of the State Church 
was aroused against him and his work. 

After some years of this work, Mr. Oncken, by a faith- 
ful study of the Scriptures, became convinced that the 
baptism of believers only is taught in the New Testament 
or was practised in apostolic times, and that the only 
baptism known to the Scriptures is immersion. Con- 
cerning this experience he has himself said the following : 

It was about this time [1828] that I became fully convinced 
from the study of the Scriptures (for I was entirely unac- 
quainted with the sentiments of the Baptists) of the truth of 
believers'' baptism and the nature of a Christian church. I and a 
few of the converts who had also seen the same truth now only 
waited for some one who, having himself followed the Lord in 
his ordinance, should be qualified to baptize us and form us into 
a church. But for this we had to wait five long years, though 
we applied to both England and Scotland. . . In 1834 [April 
22] a little company of seven believers were rowed across our 
beautiful Elbe, in the dead hour of night, to a little island, and 
there descending into the waters, were buried with Christ in bap- 
tism. . . The next day we were formed into a church, of 
which I was appointed the pastor. 1 

The man who was led by divine providence to the per- 
forming of this service was the Rev. Barnas Sears, then 
professor in the Hamilton Literary Institution, who was 

1 From " Triumphs of the Gospel," a tract by Oncken, published at 
Hamburg (no date). 



398 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

spending some time in Germany in study and had become 
known to Mr. Oncken as an American Baptist. This 
was the first Baptist church on German soil in modern 
times. Two helpers were soon won to the cause. The 
first, Julius Kobner, a Danish Jew, formerly an engraver, 
became the poet and hymn-writer of the German Baptists, 
as well as an ardent preacher. Gottfried Wilhelm Leh- 
mann was the second co-worker ; he and five others were 
baptized by Oncken at Berlin, May 13, 1837, and so the 
second church was constituted. The memory of this trio 
of preachers — they have all now gone to their reward — 
will always be precious to German Baptists, among whom 
they are known as " the clover-leaf." 

In the following September the Triennial Convention 
employed Mr. Oncken as a missionary, and the Baptist 
cause began to make steady, and at times rapid, progress 
in Germany. He also became agent for the Edinburgh 
Bible Society, and his colporters went throughout Ger- 
many selling Bibles and preaching the truth. By 1838 
the Hamburg church had grown to seventy-five members, 
and three other churches had been established. This 
success aroused the ire of the Lutheran clergy, and they 
complained to the Hamburg Senate, who directed the 
police to suppress the Baptist meetings. For a time Ger- 
man Baptists suffered severe persecution. Mr. Oncken 
was several times imprisoned and fined. In May, 1840, 
he was imprisoned four weeks, and on his release all his 
household goods were sold to pay his fine and costs. He 
was forbidden to hold religious services at which any ex- 
cept members of his own household attended ! Members 
of Baptist churches were required by law to bring their 
children to Lutheran ministers for so-called baptism, on 
pain of imprisonment or fine. Their property was liable 
to confiscation, and in general they were treated as men 
who had no rights that others were bound to respect. 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 399 

These cruelties provoked many indignant remonstrances 
from England and America, and such expressions of en- 
lightened Christian sentiment were not without their 
effect on the Hamburg Senate. A great fire in 1844 de- 
stroyed a great part of the city, and the efforts of the 
Baptists to relieve the distress of the suffering caused a 
great change in public opinion and official action. From 
this time Oncken and his church were unmolested, but 
in other parts of Germany the Baptists were less fortu- 
nate. The revolution of 1848 brought about changes for 
the better in most of the German States. The new con- 
stitution adopted in Prussia in 1850 provides, in article 
12 : " Freedom of religious confession, of meeting in re- 
ligious societies, and of the common exercise of religion 
in private and public is guaranteed." It was not until 
1858, however, that the Hamburg church was recognized 
by the State as a religious corporation. Even yet the 
Baptists do not enjoy complete toleration throughout 
Germany, though interference with them becomes more 
rare with each successive decade. 

In spite of all difficulties, remarkable progress was 
made from the first. Baptist churches sprang up in all 
the principal cities, while in the smaller towns they spread 
even more rapidly. They organized themselves into As- 
sociations, after the American plan, and in 1849 the five 
Associations then existing formed a general Triennial 
Conference, which since 1855 nas been known as the 
German Baptist Union, and has held annual meetings. 
Another great advance was taken when Dr. Philip Bickel, 
a German by birth, who had been educated in the United 
States, went to Hamburg in 1878 to take charge of the 
publication house, begun in 1838 by Mr. Oncken as a 
private enterprise, and turned over to the German Bap- 
tist Union. This has since been removed to Cassel. The 
jubilee of the German mission and the death of its 



400 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

founder both fell in the year 1884. The seven members 
with which it began fifty years before had grown into 
nearly thirty-two thousand, and have since increased to 
about fifty thousand. These are not all in Germany 
proper; the German Baptists have been mindful of 
the Great Commission, and have sent out missionaries 
to Denmark, Finland, Poland, Holland, Switzerland, Rus- 
sia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Africa. Some twenty-three 
thousand of the members they now report have been 
gathered as the result of these missionary operations. 
Their most important enterprise of recent years has been 
the establishment, in 1880, of a theological school at Ham- 
burg, in part by the aid of American Baptists. In 1888 
a new and commodious building was dedicated, that had 
been erected for the use of the seminary in a suburb of 
Hamburg. The course of study occupies four years, and 
the institution is doing much for the training of the 
German Baptist ministry. 

The Baptists of Sweden, in a sense, owe their origin 
to American Baptists, yet no American Baptist has been 
directly concerned in the work. A Swedish sailor, Gustaf 
VV. Schroeder, who had been converted in some Metho- 
dist meetings at New Orleans in April, 1844, a few months 
later found his way into the Mariners' Baptist Church, 
New York, and on the third of November of that year 
was baptized in the East River, at the site of the present 
Corlear's Hook Park. The following year he met Fred- 
erick O. Nilsson, also a Swedish sailor, who had been 
converted in New York in 1834, and then was a col- 
porter. Led by Captain Schroeder to inquire into the 
subject of baptism, Nilsson was brought to a knowl- 
edge of the truth, and was baptized in August, 1847, by 
Oncken in the Elbe, near Hamburg. In September of the 
following year the first five Swedes who were baptized 
were, with Mr. Nilsson, constituted a church with the 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 401 

aid of Rev. Mr. Forster, a Danish Baptist minister, and 
the following year Nilsson was ordained in Hamburg, 
and began to preach in Sweden. His success was marked, 
but the persecution that followed was bitter; and in 1851 
he was banished from the country. After a short stay at 
Copenhagen, he headed a colony of emigrants to this 
country, who settled in the State of Minnesota. This 
is not to be confounded with another colony, sent to this 
country in 1870 by Captain Schroeder, which went across 
the State of Maine, " poled in canoes " up the upper St. 
John, and planted a Baptist church at a place which they 
named New Sweden, in Aroostook County. 

A successor to Nilsson was found in Andreas Wiberg, 
a Lutheran minister, educated at the University of Up- 
sala who, in 1849, became unable to remain longer with 
good conscience in the Lutheran Church, where he was 
obliged to administer the communion to converted and 
unconverted alike. Meeting Mr. Oncken, and being led 
to the study of the New Testament anew, he embraced 
Baptist views. At this time he fell dangerously ill, and 
partly for the recovery of his health, partly in hope of 
enlisting the aid of American Baptists, he decided to 
make a voyage to the United States. The vessel was de- 
tained for two days at Copenhagen, and Wiberg sought 
out Nilsson and was baptized in the Baltic Sea, July 23, 
1852. His visit to the United States was successful; 
much interest in the cause in Sweden was aroused, and 
he returned to his native land as a colporter of the 
American Baptist Publication Society, in 1855. From 
this time onward the work progressed rapidly. The press 
was free in Sweden, and much was done for the spread 
of the truth by the circulation of books and tracts. 

In 1861, Captain Schroeder returned to Sweden and 
soon after bought a lot and built at his own expense a 
house of worship for the Baptist church at Gothenburg — 

2A 



402 SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

the first edifice of the kind in the country. Baptists had 
been accused of doing their works in holes and corners, so 
Captain Schroeder had a large signboard put along the 
front of the house, with the legend, " Baptist Meeting 
Hall." The pastor of this church was Rev. F. O. Nilsson, 
who by royal grace had been permitted to return from his 
banishment. Both he and Captain Schroeder were sum- 
moned, at the instigation of Bishop Bjorck, to appear 
at the police court, after the first public service, and the 
Captain was fined a sum that with costs finally amounted 
to fifty dollars. The shame and disgrace of the trial, 
however, so reacted on the prosecutors that the church 
was molested no further. 

In other places, however, the Baptists were less fortu- 
nate. Fines and imprisonments and distraint of prop- 
erty were common. Babes were forcibly taken from their 
parents and baptized in Lutheran churches. One of their 
ministers was summoned before the courts sixteen times, 
was imprisoned six times, and once was shackled for 
many days and compelled to pay a large fine. These 
persecutions, in most cases instigated by the State clergy, 
and in all cases approved by them, aroused much sym- 
pathy and indignation in Sweden itself, and also in other 
countries. Strong representations were made by the 
Evangelical Alliance; petitions for liberty of worship 
poured in upon the government; remonstrances were 
formally made by representatives of England and the 
United States, and gradually these severities were re- 
laxed. Such persecutions were the more intolerable, in 
that they were wholly illegal. The Constitution of 
Sweden, adopted in 1809, declares: "The king shall not 
coerce anybody's conscience or allow it to be coerced, but 
protect every one in the free exercise of his religion, 
provided the peace of the community is not disturbed or 
general scandal caused thereby." In the midst of the 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 403 

persecutions, King Oscar I. declared, in his opening 
speech to the Diet, October 17, 1856: " Toleration, 
founded on individual, immovable conviction, and respect 
for the religious faith of others, belongs to the essence 
of the Protestant Church, and ought to be accepted 
among a people whose heroic king, Gustavus Adolphus, 
by brilliant victories and the sacrifice of his life, laid the 
foundation of freedom of thought in Central Europe. 
Those laws, therefore, which hinder religious liberty and 
freedom of worship ought to be abolished, and the gen- 
eral law be brought into agreement with the sixteenth 
section of the constitution" [already quoted above]. 
These were brave words, yet both the king and his courts 
went on in the work of persecution, though the king fre- 
quently used his royal authority to soften its bitterness. 
Baptists do not yet enjoy complete toleration. A law 
was made in behalf of Dissenters in i860 and amended in 
1873 > but the provisions of this law are so obnoxious and 
offer so slight advantages that few Baptist churches have 
ever availed themselves of it. For the most part they 
continue to be nominally members of the State Church. 
As such they are conceded the right to meet together, so 
long as they do not teach anything that may be considered 
as leading to separation. The enforcement of this 
restriction has been dropped by general consent. 

For ten years the work in Sweden went on under the 
direction of the Publication Society, and then it was 
transferred to the Missionary Union. From nine churches 
in 1855 they grew by the end of the century to five hun- 
dred and sixty-four, and from four hundred and seventy- 
six members to forty thousand seven hundred and fifty- 
nine — a truly wonderful increase, which takes no account 
of their missionary growth. In 1867 they began to 
preach the truth in Norway, where a church was or- 
ganized the following year. Progress has been slow in 



404 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

comparison with the work in Sweden, but the century 
closed with thirty-two Baptist churches and two thou- 
sand six hundred and seventy one members in that 
country. A mission in Finland was begun in 1868, as 
a result of which thirty-one churches and two thousand 
and thirty members greeted the twentieth century. 

The Conference of Swedish churches was formed in 
1857, and has done much to promote Baptist progress. 
It has greatly stimulated the missionary spirit. Through- 
out their history the Swedish Baptists have been in the 
forefront of all Christian enterprise. They were the first 
to establish Sunday-schools in that country, not one being 
known in 1855, while in 1857 Mr. Wiberg reported eight 
among the Baptists, with three hundred and thirty-nine 
scholars. The first Christian Endeavor Society in Swe- 
den was organized in the Baptist church at Orebo, and 
in work for the young people Baptists are in advance of 
all other Christians. 

In October, 1866, the Bethel Theological Seminary was 
established in Stockholm, under the care of Rev. Knut 
O. Broady, d. d., and has since been doing a work of 
great importance in the education of the Swedish min- 
istry. In 1883 it entered a commodious building erected 
for its use in Stockholm, and has been more prosperous 
and useful since that date than before. Baptists have 
done much to sustain this, as well as the German mission, 
in the way of contributions of money from time to time ; 
but they have received their reward already. It is said, 
and doubtless with truth, that ten per cent, of the con- 
verts made by Baptists in Sweden go to swell the mem- 
bership of Baptist churches in this country, and that an 
equal proportion of the graduates of their seminary 
become pastors of Swedish churches in America. 

The Baptist cause in Denmark, as has already been 
said, is the result, not of anything done by American 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 405 

Baptists, but of the missionary enthusiasm of our German 
brethren. A Baptist church was organized in Copen- 
hagen near the close of the year 1839, eleven being then 
baptized by Mr. Oncken, and ten in July of the following 
year, when P. C. Moenster was ordained as pastor of 
the church. Another church of eight members was 
formed by Mr. Oncken in September, 1840, at Lange- 
land; and in the following October a third church of 
ten members was formed at Aalberg by Moenster. Rig- 
orous persecutions were almost immediately begun by 
the government, then an absolute monarchy. King Chris- 
tian V. promulgated the following law : " That religion 
alone shall be allowed in the king's lands and realms 
which agrees with the Holy Scriptures, the Apostolic and 
Nicene creeds, the Athanasian creed, and the Augsburg 
Confession, and with Luther's Minor Catechism." Pastor 
Moenster was imprisoned from about the first of De- 
cember, 1840, until November of the following year. 
His brother, Adolph, who took his place, shared his fate 
in May, 1841. In 1842 Moenster was imprisoned a sec- 
ond time, from January to July. Drs. Horatio B. 
Hackett and Thomas J. Conant, acting in behalf of 
American Baptists, visited the Denmark brethren in 1843, 
and attempted to alleviate their condition. High Danish 
officials, both in Church and in State, bore witness to the 
blameless character of these persecuted Baptists, and 
gradually the severities practised against them were 
relaxed. 

It was, however, not before 1850 that they began to 
enjoy much toleration; and added to this difficulty they 
lost many of their members by emigration to a land of 
greater liberty. They began to form Associations of 
their churches in 1849, an d in 1887 withdrew from the 
German Baptist Union and formed a union of their own. 
They had not been unmindful of missionary obligations, 



406 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

and have missionaries on the Congo field. The Danish 
Baptists now number over four thousand. 

One of the most interesting of the German Baptist 
missions is that in Russia. There were already Menno- 
nites in the southern region who were virtually Baptists, 
while the Stundists and other native sects have close 
affiliation with Baptist beliefs and practices. But the 
planting of Baptist churches has gone on steadily for 
quite a generation. The work began among the numer- 
ous German colonies, but has extended among the Rus- 
sians themselves. There are now some twenty-five thou- 
sand members of Baptist churches in Russia proper, and 
the number would have been greatly increased but for 
the severe persecutions they have experienced, in common 
with all dissenters from the State church. Russia pro- 
fesses to grant complete religious liberty, the imperial 
decree reading as follows : " All the subjects of the Rus- 
sian empire not belonging to the Established Church, 
both native Russians and those from abroad who are in 
the service of the State, are permitted at all times openly 
to confess their faith and practise their services in ac- 
cordance with the rite. This freedom of faith is assured 
not only to Christians of foreign confessions, but also to 
the Jews, Mohammedans, and heathen, so that all the 
peoples in Russia may worship God, the Almighty, with 
different tongues, according to the laws and confessions 
of their fathers so that they may bless the government of 
the Russian tsar, and pray for his welfare to the Cre- 
ator of the world." This seems like a very liberal pro- 
vision for freedom of conscience, but most of the con- 
cession is interpreted away by other acts. Liberty of 
worship is secured to men in the faith of their fathers, 
but they have no liberty to change their religion except by 
adopting that established by law. Nobody must persuade 
an orthodox Russian to join another church. He 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 407 

who does so is guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor, 
forfeits all his legal and civil rights, and is punishable 
by banishment to Siberia. Thousands of our Baptist 
brethren are said to have suffered this penalty — in some 
cases whole churches and their pastors having been de- 
ported. Any Russian who leaves the orthodox com- 
munion to become a Baptist may be put under the juris- 
diction of the ecclesiastical courts. This means that 
guardians will be appointed for his children, and an 
administrator for his estates, until his return to the 
orthodox faith; his obstinate refusal to return makes 
these penalties permanent. In spite of such laws and their 
rigid enforcement, the Baptist cause has continued to 
prosper in Russia. 

A mission to Greece was begun in 1836 by the Ameri- 
can Baptist Missionary Union, but very small results fol- 
lowed many years of hard labor. The chief convert of the 
mission became its leading minister, Rev. Demetrius 
Z. Sakellarios. The mission was suspended in 1856, but 
was resumed in 1871, and finally discontinued in 
1886. A recent historian of our missions sums up the 
history of the mission thus : " While the Greeks are 'of 
high intelligence and have great interest in religious sub- 
jects, they are not open to that influence of religious 
truth which will enable them to endure separation from 
their own people and church for the sake of a purer 
gospel and a more living faith." 1 

A Baptist mission founded in Spain by Rev. W. I. 
Knapp, has had a history but little more encouraging. 
At one time it was nearly extinct, but it was revived by 
the sending of a missionary from this country. There 
are now several vigorous Baptist churches and active 
pastors, and it is possible that the Baptist cause in Spain 
has a future more encouraging than its past. 

1 Merriam, "History of American Baptist Missions," p. 201. 



408 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The Southern Baptist Convention has maintained a 
mission in Italy, with varying success, since the year 
1870. An independent mission was also for a time main- 
tained in Rome by Rev. W. C. Van Meter, with the help 
of Baptists and others, but the Missionary Union has 
never established an Italian mission. Rev. George B. 
Taylor, d. d v was the efficient superintendent of the 
Southern Baptist missionary operations for many years. 
Thirty years of labor have established sixty-four Baptist 
churches in the kingdom, from the Alps to the island of 
Sicily, with one thousand four hundred and thirty mem- 
bers. There has been a good deal of sentimentalism 
connected with this mission; the idea of having a Bap- 
tist church under the very shadow of the Vatican has 
been most captivating to many minds. As was said at 
Balaklava, " It is magnificent, but it is not war." That 
sort of thing may gratify the remnant of the old Adam 
in us, but it is not evangelizing the world. 

The only cases in which our European work has proved 
prosperous, or even had the capacity of permanent life, 
are those in which there has been a self-originating body 
of Baptists, whom their American brethren have simply 
aided by counsel and money. Where we have sent out 
missionaries from this country, or where the work has 
not been from the first carried on mainly by native Bap- 
tists, there has been a succession of mortifying failures. 
Nor is it difficult to see why this should be the case. 
Europe is not a pagan country. Its people already have 
the religion of Christ — in a perverted form, it is true; 
yet not so perverted but that multitudes find in it the 
way of salvation. It is inevitable that such people should 
look with coldness upon foreigners who come to teach 
them, not a different religion, but what they have been 
bred to consider a heretical form of their own. 

The belief has therefore become of late years very 



BAPTISTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 409 

general that it is unadvisable for American Baptists to 
maintain missions in European countries by direct sup- 
port of missionaries or pastors. So soon as churches 
are formed it is believed to be best that they support their 
own pastors. Help may well be given from this country 
for the education of a native ministry, and occasionally 
for other exceptional forms of work. Whatever is done 
beyond that, experience seems to show, does not tend to 
the ultimate stability of the churches or the permanent 
growth of the cause. Churches, like men, are the better 
for being self-reliant, and early learning to stand alone. 
It is an open question whether aiding churches in our own 
country has not too frequently resulted, like indiscrim- 
inate giving to beggars, in pauperizing a large number of 
bodies that if properly stimulated to self-help might long 
since have become robust. But this is to leave the domain 
of the historian and enter that of the social philosopher. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 

AS we have seen, the number of Baptists at the end 
of the nineteenth century had come to be more than 
five millions. But a denomination that has nothing better 
upon which to congratulate itself than mere numbers 
is to be pitied. Numbers alone are not strength. Be- 
fore our worth to the world can be duly estimated, it 
becomes necessary to ask and answer the question, What 
have Baptists contributed to the religious thought and life 
of the world, and what is the value of that contribution? 

It may be sufficient to reply to this question that the 
value of Baptist contribution to Christian life and thought 
is sufficiently proved by the fact that nearly all the prin- 
ciples for which Baptists have contended are now the 
common property of Christendom. This may seem a 
sweeping if not a rash statement. Let us proceed to 
justify it in detail. 

The chief of these distinctive principles of Baptists, as 
has been set forth in a previous chapter, relates to the 
nature of the church. Baptists have always contended 
that the church is not a worldly, but a spiritual body — 
spiritual, not in the sense of lacking a local organization 
or visible identity, but because organized on the basis of 
spiritual life. In other words, the church should consist 
of the regenerate only — that is, of persons who have 
given credible evidence to the world that they have been 
born again of the Spirit of God. This principle of Bap- 
tists, which was scouted at first and for centuries, has 
now won its way to general acceptance among nearly all 
410 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 4 1 I 

Protestant denominations, such bodies as call themselves 
evangelical. In Europe, where State churches still exist, 
the principle has, it is true, made comparatively little 
progress. Where citizenship and church-membership are 
practically identical terms, it is evident that the church 
cannot insist upon regeneration as a condition of mem- 
bership. Every one who is born into the State and upon 
whom some form of so-called baptism has been practised, 
must be presumed to be regenerate, and therefore to be 
a fitting person for all the privileges of church-fellowship, 
unless by a notoriously immoral and profligate life he 
negatives the assumption and warrants the State-sup- 
ported minister or priest in refusing him communion. 
In many of the New England towns during the early 
period, church-membership was essential to the full en- 
joyment of the rights of citizenship, the State being in 
fact and almost in form a theocracy. It was natural, 
therefore, that persons who lacked spiritual qualifications 
for church-membership should yet desire a formal mem- 
bership, in order to avail themselves of the accompanying 
civil privilege. How this pressure brought about the 
" Half-way Covenant," with its disastrous effects on the 
churches, has already been told. It was for vehemently 
protesting against these evils that Jonathan Edwards was 
driven from his pastorate at Northampton, and sent forth 
like Abraham, " not knowing whither the Lord should 
lead him." 

The Baptist churches, as we have seen, through insist- 
ence upon a regenerate membership, were a bulwark 
against the rising tide of anti-scriptural doctrine that 
for a time threatened to overwhelm evangelical religion 
in New England. The influence of these facts was potent, 
not only among the Congregationalists, but among Pres- 
byterians and other Protestant bodies. The necessity was 
clearly seen of a reform that should separate the worldly 



412 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

from the spiritual elements in the church. Gradually but 
surely, without outward change in their formularies or 
an avowed alteration of practice, these bodies came virtu- 
ally to adopt the Baptist principle of a regenerate mem- 
bership. They still to a certain extent vitiate the principle 
by maintaining the unscriptural practice of infant baptism, 
but they are quite rigid in the requirement that those 
thus baptized in unconscious infancy shall, on reaching 
years of maturity, make a public and personal profession 
of religion before they are received into full member- 
ship. And in many churches, Congregational, Presby- 
terian, Methodist, if not in all, this profession is not a mere 
form of words, but care is taken by the officers of the 
church to secure credible evidence of regeneration before 
the candidate is received. In many cases the examination is 
quite as careful and searching as that to which candidates 
for baptism are subjected in Baptist churches. While, 
therefore, we regret that our evangelical brethren of other 
faiths do not see the truth as we see it and that they 
are yet, as we believe, rendering an imperfect obedience 
to the commands of Christ, we have reason to rejoice that 
Baptist example has so far borne fruit that these brethren 
have in so large measure adopted, as their rule of church 
order, the cardinal distinctive principle of Baptists. 

We may note as a second contribution of Baptists to 
Christian thought the fact that what is known as the bap- 
tismal controversy is now practically at an end. The issue 
has been decided and the verdict of scholarship is ren- 
dered. It is true that there are some Pedobaptists who 
imagine that the war is still going on, just as there are 
said to be mountaineers in Tennessee who still imagine 
that Andrew Jackson is a candidate for the presidency. 
But Andrew Jackson is not more unmistakably dead and 
buried than the baptismal controversy. No scholar of 
world-wide repute would risk his fame by denying that 






PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 413 

the primitive baptism was immersion, and immersion 
only. Not more than one or two Greek lexicons ever 
printed give any other meaning for the word baptizo 
than " immerse " or " dip " or their equivalents in other 
languages. 1 No exegete of the first rank attributes any 
other meaning than this to the word wherever it occurs 
in the New Testament. No church historian of the 
first rank has put his name to any other statement than 
that in apostolic times baptism was always the immer- 
sion of a believer. The admissions to this effect from 
Pedobaptist scholars of all countries during the last three 
centuries are numbered by scores, even by hundreds. 
There is no voice to the contrary except from men of 
scant scholarship, and the question is no longer disputed 
by anybody who is worth the attention of a serious 
person. 

The candid Pedobaptists have entirely changed their 
ground. They no longer engage in pettifogging about 
the meaning of baptizo and the force of certain Greek 
prepositions; they boldly acknowledge, with Dean Stan- 
ley, that " there can be no question that the original form 
of baptism — the very meaning of the word — was com- 
plete immersion in the deep baptismal waters," but that 
such immersion is " peculiarly unsuitable to the tastes, 
the convenience, and the feelings of the countries of the . ; 
North and West." This argument ignores, to be sure, 
the historical fact that sprinkling originated in the warm 
South, and immersion lingered longest in a cold country 
like England ; but never mind that. The triumphant con- 
clusion is fine — this quite unauthorized substitution of 
sprinkling for immersion, though it " has set aside the 
larger part of the apostolic language regarding baptism, 

1 The secondary meaning, " to dye," recognized in most lexicons, cannot 
be called another meaning, since it expresses a mere modification of the 
root signification of the word — the dyeing is performed by dipping. 



414 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

and has altered the very meaning of the word," is never- 
theless to be regarded as " a striking example of the 
triumph of common sense and convenience over the 
bondage of form and custom." 

To meet their opponents on this changed ground, Bap- 
tists have but to stand by their cardinal principle that the 
authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, as expressed to us 
through the Scriptures, is paramount with a true follower 
of Christ. When he says, Do this, whatever it may be, 
his loyal follower has no choice but to obey. And he 
cannot long persuade himself or persuade the world that it 
is obedience to do something quite different, under the 
plea that " it will do just as well." Nothing will do as 
well as unquestioning, exact, glad obedience to Christ's 
lightest word. 

It would be flattering to denominational pride to say 
that a third Baptist contribution to Christian thought is 
the doctrine as to the place of the Lord's Supper among 
the ordinances of Christ ; but to say this would not be 
true. The Baptist doctrine in this respect has never been 
peculiar, though opponents have sometimes made strenu- 
ous efforts to represent it as such. There is not — there 
never has been — a Christian body whose standards author- 
ized its clergy to administer the communion to the un- 
baptized. Individual ministers have stretched church law 
to cover their own wrong practice in this regard. It is 
not uncommon, for example, for Episcopal clergymen to 
admit to the communion practically all who present them- 
selves and are not known to them to be persons of im- 
moral life, and they sometimes invite people whom they 
know to be Christians not in fellowship with their church. 

These things are, however, done in spite of the rubric, 
which says, " And there shall none be admitted to the 
Holy Communion until such time as he be confirmed or 
be ready and desirous to be confirmed." If Episcopal 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 415 

ministers here and there violate the well-established rule 
of their own church, that cannot be regarded as altering 
the rule. This principle applies equally to pastors of 
Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches 
that on their own authority invite to the Lord's table 
other than baptized Christians. Their church formularies 
authorize no such invitation. 

Only the exceptionally ignorant or the exceptionally 
unscrupulous now reproach Baptists because of their 
" close " communion, since intelligent and candid Pedo- 
baptists know and acknowledge that we stand precisely 
where all Christendom stands, and where all Christendom 
always has stood from the days of the apostles until now, 
with regard to the qualifications for communion. All that 
Baptists can claim to have done in this matter is to have 
cleared away the mass of sophistries with which op- 
ponents had beclouded this question, until no excuse for 
ignorance and no apology for misrepresentation are 
possible. 

But if Baptists cannot properly claim the honor of 
contributing this principle to Christian thought, they can 
honestly claim to have added another principle, namely, 
that the union of Church and State is contrary to 
the word of God, contrary to natural justice, and de- 
structive to both parties to the union. Next to a regen- 
erate church-membership, this has been the principle for 
which Baptists have most strenuously contended and with 
which they have been most prominently identified. For 
this teaching they were from the time of the Reformation 
until a period within the memory of men now living, de- 
spised and rejected of men, loaded with opprobrium, re- 
viled, persecuted, put to death. Toleration was a byword 
and a hissing among all parties of Christians, and re- 
ligious liberty was an idea that apparently never entered 
men's minds until it was professed, defended, and 



4l6 A SHORT HISTORY OP THE BAPTISTS 

exemplified by Baptists. It is difficult for Americans, liv- 
ing in an atmosphere of perfect religious liberty, where 
no law restrains any man from worshiping God in any 
way that his conscience dictates, or compels him to con- 
tribute of his substance to the support of any worship 
that he does not approve — it is hard for us even to im- 
agine a state of society in which the majority determined 
what the community should believe, how men should 
worship God, and repressed all dissent with savage laws 
and penalties that did not stop short of the stake and the 
scaffold. 

The once despised teaching of a few Baptists has be- 
come a commonplace of thought in our country, a funda- 
mental principle of law, and he would be laughed at 
who should propose its overthrow or even its modifica- 
tion. But to appreciate what change has been wrought 
by this idea in American religious and civil life, an 
American must study the institutions of Europe, where 
there is no State that has not its established church, 
where dissent from the established religion is punished 
more or less severely by civil and social disabilities, if 
not by imprisonment and fines ; and where, even if un- 
molested, those who dissent from the established religion 
are, nevertheless, heavily taxed for its support. This was 
the principle that prevailed during the colonial period 
in our own land. This would be the system under which 
we should now be living had not this despised principle, 
of the Baptists become incorporated into the very spiritual 
and moral fiber of the American people. 

There is still reason why Baptists should continue to 
bear their testimony in favor of this principle. It is gen- 
erally acknowledged and professed, but not always 
obeyed. The separation of Church and State is not yet ab- 
solutely complete. Appropriations are made from Federal 
and State funds for the support of sectarian institutions on 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 417 

one plausible pretext or another ; a certain denomination is 
recognized as having almost a monopoly of chaplain- 
ships in the army and navy, and its form of worship is 
generally maintained in both services; in some States 
inoffensive people who conscientiously observe the seventh 
day are prosecuted and punished by fines or imprison- 
ment for quietly laboring in the fields on the first day of 
the week. And it is a fair question for debate whether 
the exemption of church property from taxation is not 
a relic of the old idea of church establishments. Here 
are still opportunities for Baptists to lift up the voice in 
behalf of their cherished principle, to cry aloud and spare 
not, until it is not only acknowledged to be abstractly 
true, but is concretely obeyed. 

The Baptist principle of the independence of each 
church has also won its way to a very considerable de- 
gree of acceptance among churches of all orders. Among 
the Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Methodist churches, 
although in theory there is a more or less centralized and 
hierarchical government, the independence of the local 
church is practically unquestioned. The Methodist bishop 
still retains his theoretical power of ordering any man to 
any church, but it somehow happens that where a church 
desires a certain pastor, and the pastor desires to settle 
with that church, the bishop makes that identical ap- 
pointment. The Episcopal bishop has, in theory, large 
powers; in practice, every Episcopal church chooses its 
own rector as absolutely as though there were no bishop. 
In theory, no Presbyterian church can call a pastor, and 
no pastor can be dismissed, without the concurrence of 
presbytery; but where both parties have made up their 
minds, presbytery always concurs. 

Baptists have also contributed their share to the world's \ 
advancement by their interest in missions, in education, in 
Sunday-schools, and in general philanthropic movements. 



418 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

The facts that justify this claim have been given in 
detail in previous chapters of this history, and only this 
statement needs to be made here, by way of giving com- 
pleteness to this brief summary. Though not, strictly 
speaking, pioneers in most of these forms of religious 
activity, our churches have helped to bear the heat and 
burden of the day. 

Though Baptists have thus powerfully influenced other 
bodies of Christians, it would be a mistake to infer that 
they have themselves escaped modifications in belief and 
practice through the influence of other Christian brethren. 
Mr. Spurgeon was reported, some years ago, as proudly 
remarking that he had never changed an opinion, and that 
he then preached precisely what he did when he began 
his ministry. The remark is probably not authentic, and 
was certainly not true ; and if it had been true, it would 
be a reflection on the intelligence of a man who could 
spend fifty years in the ministry without learning any- 
thing. Mr. Spurgeon's admirers, and their name is legion, 
cannot think so meanly of him. If a great preacher can- 
not live and labor a half-century without having his be- 
liefs modified, still less can a large body, composed of 
many elements, some of them discordant, exposed to 
numerous hostile and disintegrating influences, and sub- 
ject to those laws of development and growth that affect 
all social organisms. Change was inevitable, but change 
is not necessarily deterioration. Whether the modifica- 
tion is for the better may be left for the decision of 
theologians; the historian merely records the fact. 

Modifications in Baptist faith and practice during the 
last two centuries may be noted (i) in the character of 
public worship, (2) in a less rigidly Calvinistic theology, 
(3) in a change of emphasis that marks the preaching 
of our day. 

The feeling has gained ground among Baptist pastors 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 419 

of late years that the public worship of our churches 
lacks elements of color and variety and richness that it 
should have, and that it has departed from the scrip- 
tural method in practically giving over the public 
worship of God to two hired functionaries — the minister 
and the choir. The introduction of congregational sing- 
ing and the use of the Psalter, as well as certain ancient 
forms of devotion that are the common heritage of 
Christendom and not the property of any church, has 
followed close on the conviction. Something like a gen- 
eral tendency in this direction is now observable, but how 
far it will proceed it were vain to speculate. 

That both Calvinism and Arminianism have been so 
modified as to bear little relation to the systems once 
passing under these names is so well understood, and 
so little likely to be questioned, that it is not worth while 
to waste space in more than a statement of the fact. 
Each has reacted on the other, and between the latest 
statements of the two opposing systems a critical stu- 
dent can discern little more than a difference of empha- 
sis. Both assert the sovereign election and free grace of 
God as the ground of the sinner's salvation; both admit 
that the will of man, free as regards all external con- 
straint, accepts God's proffered grace ; the Calvinist laying 
the greater stress on the former idea, the Arminian on 
the latter. 

This matter of a changed emphasis has not been con- 
fined to theological circles alone; it has affected every 
pulpit. Any one who will read the published discourses 
of a century ago and compare them with those of the 
present day must be struck by this fact. The same doc- 
trines are professed and believed as then, but how differ- 
ent the mode of presentation. The eternity of future 
punishment is still an article of faith, but the preacher no 
longer threatens sinners with a hell of material fire. 



420 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS 

Retribution is conceived as something at once more spirit- 
ual and more terrible than physical torture. The infinite 
love of God as shown in the redemption of a lost world ; 
the atonement a satisfaction for its sins ; salvation not a 
thing of the future life, but beginning here and now, not 
a mere rescue from hell, but the consecration of a life to 
God — these are the ideas that are most emphasized in the 
best preaching of to-day. To note the change is not to 
pronounce judgment on either the past or the present. 

Another change is at present in progress among Bap- 
tists, but it is too soon to attempt to record its history. 
Two parties are in process of formation in the denomina- 
tion, one who call themselves Progressives, another com- 
monly called Conservatives. The names are not very 
happily chosen, but they are convenient, and their appli- 
cation is generally understood. These parties differ on 
questions of speculative theology, of history, of literary 
criticism, of denominational policy, of church order. At 
times there are symptoms that their opposition may break 
out into an open warfare ; at times a peaceful issue seems 
not only hopeful, but certain. 

In the judgment of men of other faiths, the most char- 
acteristic fact in the history of the Baptists during the 
last two centuries has been, not their rapid growth in 
numbers, but their marvelous continuity of belief, their 
orthodoxy of doctrine. It is the wonder of many mem- 
bers of other churches having elaborate written stand- 
ards, and an ingenious system of checks and devices to 
prevent and punish heresy, that a denomination without 
a creed, without a government, with no central authority 
or other human device for preserving unity, with each 
local organization a law unto itself and responsible to 
none save Christ — that such a rope of sand should hold 
together at all, much less sustain a strain that the 
strongest bodies have borne none too well. 



PROGRESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES 42 1 

But one cause can be plausibly assigned for this phe- 
nomenon, and that is, Baptist loyalty to their fundamental 
principle, the word of God the only rule of faith and 
practice. The Scriptures are easily " understanded of the 
people," even the unlettered who approach them with 
open minds desiring to know the will of God. Such 
may not become great biblical scholars, but they will learn 
everything that it is important for them to know for 
their eternal salvation and daily guidance. They may 
not become profound theologians, but they will learn 
the cardinal truths of the Christian faith, and learn them 
more accurately in their right relations than the student 
of some human system is likely to learn them. 

Loyalty to this principle has been the strength of 
Baptists in the past, and as they are loyal to it in future 
they may expect increase in numbers, in strength, and 
in unity. 



INDEX 



Abelard, teacher of Arnold, 80, 

Act of Toleration : effect on English 
Baptists, 256 : effect in Wales, 271. 

Academies : Hopewell, 352 ; in New 
England, 355; Horton (N. S.), 283; 
recent progress of, 369, 371. 

Adventists, origin of, 393. 

Affusion : among Swiss Anabaptists, 
136; among Menuonites, 190; prac- 
tised by John Smyth, 204. 

Albigenses : numerous in Southern 
France, 103 ; crushed by crusade, 104. 

Allison, Doctor Burgess. 352. 

Ailine, Henry, evangelist, 277. 

Amsterdam, first Baptist church in, 4, 
203. 

Anabaptists : name misapplied to Eng- 
lish believers, 3 ; English Z's. Conti- 
nental, 4 ; Novatians and Donatists 
so named, 66 ; relation to Waldenses, 
12S, 130; origin of Swiss, 129: become 
separate party, 136 ; persecution in 
Zurich, 13S, 140 ; disappear, 141 ; in 
canton of Bern, 142 ; emigrate to 
America, 143 : teachings of. 144 ; 
many varieties in Germany, 146 ; their 
sudden appearance, 148 ; opposed to 
persecution, 161 ; persecuted every- 
where, 161 ; Sebastian Franck on. 165 ; 
Miinzer not of them. 174 ; discredited 
by disorders at Munster, 179-1S1 ; 
Melanchthon on persecution of, 181 ; 
in Moravia, 154, 182 ; disappearance 
of. 184 ; number of martyrs among, 
iS3; Henry VIII. persecutes, 193; 
Joan of Kent burned, 195 ; Edward 
Wightman burned. 197. 

Anderson, Martin B., 357. 

Anderson, Rev. Elisha, 278. 

Andru, Rev. Henri, 396. 

Angus, Rev. Joseph, 267. 

Angrogne, Synod of, 126. 

Anti-mission Baptists, 326, 333, 388. 

Antioch, crisis at, 20. 

Antinomianism : among Bogomils, 78 ; 
in England, 240. 

Arius and his teachings : condemned by 
Council of Nice, 67 ; favored by Julian, 
63. 

Arnold of Brescia : his evangelical 
teaching, 9 ; life and labors, 80-85. 

Arminius : his theology, 203-205 ; his 
teachings modified, 419. 

Asceticism, growth of. 55, 60. 

Aspersion, first recognized, 49. 

Associations : first formed in England. 
239; General Baptist, 247; Six-prin- 



ciple, 267 ; in Nova Scotia, 280 ; in 
New Brunswick, 281 ; in the United 
States : Philadelphia, 306, 310, 314 ; 
Kehukee, 317; Mahoning, Redstone, 
Dover, 343. 

Athanasius and his teaching, 68-70. 

Augsburg. Anabaptists of, 4, 158. 

Augustine: his adult baptism. 50; op- 
poses Donatists, 66; defends perse- 
cution, 97. 

Australasia, Baptists in, 285. 

Baptism : act of, 4 ; immediately fol- 
lowed belief, 25 ; clinic, 48 ; regarded 
as sacrament, 46 ; and the catechu- 
menate, 51 ; " for remission of sins," 
343 ; Dean Stanley on, 413. 

Baptism of believers : the original prac- 
tice, 4 ; continued for centuries, 50 ; 
practised by Patrick, 72 ; by Bogomils, 
77 : by Petrobrusians, 114 ; by Hen- 
ricians, 118 ; by Waldenses, T23, 126 ; 
by Anabaptists, 136; the distinctive 
Baptist principle, 146 ; practised by 
Smyth's church, 204. 

Baptism of infants : not found in New 
Testament. 26 ; how and when intro- 
duced. 49, 50; practised by Donatists, 
66 ; denied by medieval sects, 102 ; 
rejected by Henry of Lausanne, 118 ; 
by Waldenses, 123, 126 ; opposed by 
Miinzer, 171 ; rejected by Mennonites, 
190; questioned by Dunster, 297. 

Baptists : name first given, 3, 4 ; first 
church of, 4, 203 ; and apostolic suc- 
cession, 6-10 ; beginnings of, 201 : 
origin of General, 204 ; fal-e claims of 
antiquity of, 205; origin of Particular, 
205 ; growth of, 211 ; relations of, to 
Mennonites, 209 ; on side of Parlia- 
ment, 219 ; under Cromwell. 222 ; and 
Fifth Monarchy, 224 : under James II., 
234; curious customs of English, 235; 
slow growth of, 237 ; General Assembly 
of, 238 ; first Associations of, 239 ; 
Hyper-Calvinism among, 240 : decline 
of, 241 : effect of Wesleyan movement 
on, 245 : Dan Taylor joins General, 
246 ; comparative growth of, 262 ; pe- 
riods in history of American, 287 ; in 
New York, 302 ; in Pennsylvania and 
New Jersey, 304 ; in South Carolina, 
306 ; in Virginia, 307 ; in North Caro- 
lina, 307 ; slow growth of in New Eng- 
land, 308 ; in New Hampshire and Ver- 
mont, 313 ; their period of greatest 
advance, 319 ; pioneers in Middle West, 

423 



424 



INDEX 



321 ; condition in 1850, 362 ; growth in 
last fifty years, 366 ; increase of wealth 
among, 379 ; secret of their growth, 380, 
421 ; oppose Unitarians, 411 ; two par- 
ties among, 420. 

Baptists in Australasia, 285 ; in France, 
394, seq. ; in Germany, 396, seq. ; in 
Sweden, 400, seq. ; in Norway, 403 ; 
in Russia, 406. 

Baptists, minor varieties of: Six-prin- 
ciple, 267, 384; Seventh-day, 268, 390; 
Free, 385, seq. ; Original Freewill, 385 ; 
Separate, 387 ; United, 387 ; Primitive, 
388 ; Two-seed-in-Spirit, 389. 

'• Baptist Almanac," quoted, 363. 

Baptist Church of Christ, 389. 

Baptist Union : organization, 256 ; Spur- 
geon withdraws from, 261. 

"Baptist Year-Book," quoted, 362, 369, 

378. 

Barnabas, work at Antioch, 20. 

Basil the Bogomil, 78. 

Baxter, abhors toleration, 220. 

Baynes, Thomas Spencer, 261. 

Beecher, Rev. Lyman, 320. 

Bern : Anabaptists of, 141 ; disputation 
at, 153. 

Bernard of Clairvaux : opposes Abelard 
and Arnold, 82 ; his bitterness as per- 
secutor, 109; writes against Henry of 
Lausanne, 117. 

Bible, versions of: Carey's, 254, 257; 
Judson's, 236 ; Yates and Pearce's, 
258. 

Bible societies : British and Foreign, 
257; Bible Translation, 258; Ameri- 
can, 336 ; American and Foreign, 338; 
American Bible Union, 338. 

Bickel, Rev. Philip, 361, 399. 

Bintgens case, among Mennonites, 192. 

Bishop: origin of name, 30; how sepa- 
rate office of, developed, 53 ; Ignatius 
on, 54 ; Irenaeus and Cyprian on, 54 ; 
in Patrick's time, 73. (See Elders.) 

Blaurock, George : Swiss Anabaptist, 
135 ; imprisoned at Zurich, 137 ; burned, 
140. 

Blunt, Richard, baptism of, 207. 

Bockhold ("John of Leyden") and his 
doings in Miinster, 179. 

Bogomils : origin of, 76 ; doctrines of, 77. 

Bohemia, revolt against Rome, 89, seq. 

Bohemian Brethren (see Moravians). 

Bowne, John, banished, 303. 

Braintree Church, 205. 

Brescia : Arnold preaches in, 80 ; Savo- 
narola's preaching at, 87. 

Bridgewater Church, 205. 

British East India Company, opposes 
missions, 253. 

Britten, William, 3. 

Boardman, Rev. George Dana, 334. 

Brown, Chad, "elder" in Providence, 
292. 

Brown, Nicholas, 354. 

Buckle, on persecution of Anabaptists, 
188. 

Bulgaria and the Bogomils, 75. 

Bunyan, John : his "Grace Abounding," 



213 ; not an orthodox Baptist, 232 ; his 
writings, 233 ; advocates open com- 
munion, 263 : as a preacher, 266. 
Busher, Leonard, 208. 

Caecilian, bishop of Carthage, 64. 

Caffyn, Matthew, 238. 

Calvin, and the burning of Servetus, 139. 

Calvinism : among Particular Baptists, 
240 ; modified, 419. 

Campbell, Alexander, and his followers, 
342, seq. 

Canada, Baptists in, 276, seq. 

Carey, William : a great linguist, 251, 
254 ; life and labors of, 259, seq. ; 
opposed by Hyper-Calvinists, 326. 

Carson, Alexander, life and work of, 275, 
276. 

Carmichael, Robert, becomes Baptist, 
272. 

Catechumenate, history of, 51. 

Cathari, 64, 75, 102. 

Celsus, confuted by Origen, 41. 

Chaplin, Rev. Jeremiah, 355. 

" Character of the Beast," John Smyth's 
book, 203. 

Charles I., and his contest with his 
people, 219, 227, 228. 

Charles II.: and Kiffen, 214; and the 
Act of Uniformity, 217, 231 ; resto- 
ration of, 226; favors toleration, 230; 
Grantham's petition to, 239; influence 
of his reign, 242 ; grants charter to 
Rhode Island, 295. 

Charles V. and the Edict of Brussels, 
188. 

Chase, Rev. Irah, 394. 

Chiliasm : among Montanists, 60; among 
Anabaptists, 155, 171, 176, 179; in 
England, 223-226 ; in America, 393. 

Christianity : its early Jewish ideals, 16 ; 
becomes differentiated from Judaism, 
18; crisis in its history, 20 ; propagated 
through empire, 21 ; legal status under 
Roman law, 35, seq. ; attacks on and 
apologies for, 39-41 ; corrupted by 
prosperity, 43, 56. 

Christian V., king of Denmark, favors 
persecution, 405. 

Christian Endeavor, Society of, 359, seq. 

Christians or Christian Connection, 393. 

Christadelphians, 393. 

Church : continuity of, 5; the invisible, 
7; but twice mentioned by Jesus, 13; 
relation to kingdom, 14, 24; consists 
of regenerate only, 26, 114, 134, 146, 
149, 410 ; officers of, 29-31 ; inde- 
pendence of, 31, 417 ; worship of, 32, 
^3 ; idea of Holy Catholic, 44, seq. ; 
Montanist theory of, 58; Arnold's 
teachings about, 81 ; Roman concep- 
tion of, 86, 100: Petrobrusian theory 
of, 114 ; radical theory of, in Zurich, 
146 ; Menno's teaching concerning, 
187. 

Church of God (see Winnebrenner). 

Church and State : union under Con- 
stantine, 95 ; Arnold demands sepa- 
ration of, 81, 83 ; separation begun in 



INDEX 



425 



United States, 319, seq. ; not yet fully 
accomplished, 416. 
Church of England : baptism in, 198 ; 
dissenters from, 206, 231, 235 (see also 
Separates) ; and Archbishop Laud, 
219 ; under Cromwell, 222 ; under 
Charles II., 231 ; hostile to Wesley, 

243 ; effect of Wesleyan movement on, 

244 ; undertakes missionary work, 257. 
Churches : Southwark, 260 ; Swansea, 

269, 299 ; Piscataway, 287, 288, 304 ; 
Middletown, 288, 304; Providence, 292; 
Newport, 294; Boston, 300; Charles- 
town, 301, 306 ; Pennepack, 304 ; Hav- 
erhill, 311 ; New York, 317 ; Chicago, 
329- 

Clarke, Dr. John : early life of 293 ; 
"elder" at Newport, 294; procures a 
charter, 295 ; arrested in Boston, 298. 

Clement of Rome, uses sacerdotal terms, 

Clergy, not a New Testament word, 30. 

Clerical celibacy, 55. 

Clifford, Rev. John, 261. 

"Close" communion : practised by 
Swiss Anabaptists, 144; by Smyth's 
church, 204 ; by English Baptists, 211 ; 
in Canada, 280 ; principle of, generally 
approved, 415. 

Clugny, monastery of, 115. 

Coggeshall Church, 205. 

Colby University (college), 355. 

Colgate, William, 357. 

Columbian University, 356. 

Communion : apostolic practice in, 28 ; 
regarded as a sacrament, 52 ; qualifi- 
cations for, 414. (See "Close" com- 
munion and "Open" communion.) 

Communism, at Jerusalem, 14. 

Conant, Rev. Thomas J., 405. 

Cone, Dr. Spencer H., 338. 

Confession : the Assembly's, 3 ; Schleith- 
eim, 144: of 1644, 211; of 1677, 237; 
others, 238. 

Constance, bishop of, 152. 

Constance : Hus burned at, 93 ; Hatzer's 
death at, 140, 141. 

Constantine : effect of his policy, 56 ; 
decides against the Donatists, 65 ; 
calls Council of Nice, 67. 

Controversy : baptismal in England, 209, 
210 ; on Bible versions in England, 258 ; 
on communion, 263; "down grade," 
261 ; Unitarian, 335 ; Bible Society, 336, 
seq.; Anti-masonic, 341, seq. ; Camp- 
bellite or Disciple, 342 ; anti-slavery, 
344 ; baptismal in America, 412 ; com- 
munion, 414. 

Colleges : Canadian, 283, seq. ; other, 
355> 359. seq.; development of, in recent 
years, 367, seq. 

Convention : Saratoga, 340 ; Southern 
Baptist, 347 ; Triennial, 332, 349. 

Conventicle Act, 231. 

Cornelius, conversion of. 18. 

Cornelius, chosen bishop of Rome, 63. 

Cornelius (historian) : on persecution of 
Anabaptists, 165 ; on Munster uproar, 
180. 



Council : Jerusalem, 20, 31 ; at Nice, 96 ; 
Ravenna, 49 ; Second Lateran, 82 ; at 
Sens, 82 ; at Constance, 92, 93 ; at 
Rheims, 118 ; Fourth Lateran, 104, 
128; Toulouse, 128; Tarracona, 128. 

Crandall, Reuben, 279. 

Cranmer and Anabaptists, 193. 

Crawford, Alexander, 280. 

Cromwell, Oliver : Baptists trusted by, 
219, 220 ; his ideas of toleration, 221 ; 
his Triers, 222 ; ambition of, 223, 228 

Crosby, Thomas, Baptist historian, 205, 
206, 207. 

Crowle and Epworth Church, 205. 

Cyprian : on bishops, 34 : becomes mar- 
tyr, 37 ; on clinic baptism, 48. 

Dean, Rev. William, 334. 

Deacons, first appointed, 29. 

Decius, persecution of, 37. 

De Blois, Rev. Stephen, 278. 

Deism in England, 241. 

Delaney, Rev. James, 323. 

Denmark, Baptists in, 404, seq. 

Denck, John, Anabaptist leader : life of, 

157 ; his theology, 158 ; his last years, 

159 ; on civil government, 176. 
Devan, T. T., 395. 
Devonshire Square Church, 275. 
Dexter, Gregory, " elder " at Providence, 

292. 
Diet of Speyer, its edict, 164. 
Dimocks, the, Baptist preachers, 276. 
Diocletian and his persecution, 37. 
Disciples, origin of, 342, seq. 
Discipline : among Mennonites, 192 ; 

among English Baptists, 236 ; recent 

decline of, 381. 
Dolomore, Rev. D., 286. 
Domestic Missionary Society (Mass.), 

279. 
Donatists : origin of, 64 ; appeal to the 

emperor, 65 ; practise infant baptism, 

66 ; called Anabaptists, 146. 
"Dropping," growth of practice, 381. 
Dungan, Rev. Thomas, 304. 
Dunster, Henry, opposes baptism of 

infants, 297. 

Eaton, Rev. Isaac, 352. 

Eck, John, 149. 

Education : among English Baptists, 
266 ; among American Baptists, 350, 
seq., 366, seq. (See Colleges, Semina- 
ries, etc.) 

Edwards, Morgan, life and labors of, 

3*4- 

Edwards, Jonathan, 411. 

Elders : origin of, 29 ; plurality of, 31. 
(See Bishops.) 

Elizabeth, Queen, persecutes Anabap- 
tists, 195. 

English Baptist Missionary Society, 252. 

Erasmus : his New Testament, 131 ; rank 
of, as scholar, 150. 

Eucharist (see Communion). 

Euthymius, his account of Bogomils, 76. 

Evans, Christmas, and the Baptists of 
Wales, 271. 



426 



INDEX 



Evangelical party, the Old : protesting 
against Rome, in ; Doctor Keller on, 
in. 

Eyres, Nicholas, 304. 

Eythorne Church, 205. 

Faber, John, 149. 

Farel (William), at Angrogne, 126. 
Farringdon Road Church, 205. 
Fau/k, Jacob, drowned at Zurich, 139. 
Feet-washing: not an ordinance, 28; 
practised as an ordinance, 385, 387, 389, 

39 2 - 
Ferdinand, Archduke, arrests Hiibmaier, 

156. 
Fifth Monarchy men, in England, 223, 

224, 226. 
Finney, Charles G., 350. 
Fisher, Rev. Ezra, 329. 
Fitch, Titus, 279. 
Five-mile Act, 231. 
Florence, Savonarola's career at, 87, 

seq. 
Fox, George, 148. 

Franciscans : their founder, 122 ; over- 
throw Savonarola, 88. 
France, Baptists in, 394, seq. 
Frankenhausen, battle of, 172. 
Franck, Sebastian, on Anabaptists, 165. 
Frederick Barbarossa, 84. 
Free Baptists, 385, seq. 
Freerks, Anabaptist martyr, 185. 
Freeman, Rev. Allen B., 329. 
Friends, affinity for Mennonites, 191. 
Friesland, converts in, 177. 
Fuller, Rev. Andrew : life and labors of, 

248 ; theology of, 249 ; works of, 361 ; 

leader in missions, 252, 255. 
Furman, Rev. Richard, 352. 
Fiisslin, on origin of Anabaptists, 129. 

Gainsborough, John Smyth at, 202. 

Gale, Rev. Amory, 323. 

Gano, Rev. John, 310, 317, 320. 

Garfield, President, 356. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 345. 

General Baptists : origin and growth 
of, 204, seq. ; General Assembly of, 
238 ; decline of, 239 ; New Connexion 
formed, 247 ; unite with Particular 
Baptists, 257 : in America, 388. 

General Court (of Massachusetts) : con- 
demns Baptists, 296 ; case of Dunster, 
298 ; its treatment of Clarke and 
Holmes, 298; nails up doors of First 
Baptist Church, 300. 

' General meetings," 305. 

General Convention of Baptists : origin 
of, 332 ; divided on account of slavery, 
346. 

Gentiles, gospel first preached to, 18. 

Germany: condition of peasants in, 167; 
social revolution in, 168 ; Baptists in, 
397, seq. ; Anabaptists in, 145, seq. ; 
persecution the law of, 161, seq. 

"German Baptists" (see Dunkards). 

Gill, Rev. John : theology of, 240; bap- 
tizes Robert Carmichael, 272. 

Gnosticism, 55, 60. 



Going, Rev. Jonathan, founds American 

Baptist Home Mission Society, 327. 
Goold, Rev. Thomas : opposes infant 

baptism, 299 ; pastor First Baptist 

Church, Boston, 300. 
" Grace Abounding," 213, 
Grantham, Thomas, 239. 
Great Commission : first given, 13 ; the 

ministry's "marching orders," 252; 

practically nullified, 241. 
Great Awakening, 309, 313. 
Grebel, Conrad : taught by predecessors, 

129 ; early life o^ 134 ; his last labors 

and death, 140; letter of, to Miinzer, 

172. 
Greece, Baptist mission to, 407. 

Hackett, Horatio B., 405. 

Half-way Covenant, 308, 411. 

Haldane Brothers, 273, seq. ; 279. 

Hall, Robert : on Gill's commentary, 
240 ; a great preacher, 259 ; favors open 
communion, 264. 

Ham, Rev. William, 285. 

Hamburg, senate : persecutes Baptists, 
398 ; grants toleration, 399. 

Hamilton, institutions at, 356. 

Harding, Rev. Seth, 278. 

Harrison, Gen. Thomas : life, services, 
and death of, 226-229 ; his opposition 
to Cromwell, 223, 228. 

Harrison, Gen. William Henry, 324. 

Hascall, Rev. Daniel, 356. 

Hatzer, Ludwig : Anabaptist leader, 135 ; 
punished at Zurich, 137; his death at 
Constance, 140; his translation of 
prophets, 159. 

Havelock, General, 261. 

Heberle, on Anabaptists, 129. 

Hebbard, Rev. John, 278. 

Helwys, Thomas, English Baptist leader, 
202-205. 

Henry, Patrick, advocates religious lib- 
erty, 319. 

Henry VIII., proclamations of, against 
heretics, 193. 

Henry of Lausanne, 116, 118. 

Hesse, Landgrave of, dislikes persecu- 
tion, 164. 

" High " and " Low" Mennonites, 191. 

Hildebrand (see Popes). 

Hill, David J., 357. 

Hill Cliff Church, 205. 

Hofmann, Melchior : early life of, 175: 
leader of Anabaptists, 176 ; his impris- 
onment and death, 177 ; his doctrine 
of Christ's person, 195. 

Holmes, Obadiah, whipped at Boston, 
298. 

Holland : Hofmann's labors in, 176 ; 
grants toleration, 189 ; English Baptists 
in, 201, * 

Hopkins, Mark, 356. 

Holy Spirit : descent of, at Pentecost, 
14 ; Montanist doctrine of, 58 ; com- 
pared to Friends', 59. 

" Holy War," Bunyan's, 233. 

Horton Church, 277. 

Hiibmaier, Balthasar ; Anabaptist leader, 



INDEX 



427 



153 ; imprisoned at Zurich, 137 ; early 
years of, 149 ; at Ratisbon and Wald- 
shut, 1*50; friend of Zwingli, 151 ; his 
tracts, 153 ; labors of, at Nikolsburg, 
154-156 ; death of, 156 ; his " Heretics 
and those who burn them," 161 ; his 
relation to Miinzer, 171. 

Hughes, Rev. Joseph, 257, 336. 

Hurst, Bishop, on Savonarola,.85. 

Hus, John : early career of, 89; disciple 
of Wiclif, 91 ; burned at-Cfjns^ance, 93. 

Hut, Hans, 155. * 

Hutchinson, Roger, on AnatTa^tists, 194. 

Ignatius, on bishops, 54. 

Immersion : practised by some Anabap- 
tists, 4 ; no provable succession of, 6 ; 
the apostolic practice, 14 ; the practice 
of, modified, 47 ; in Britain, 73 ; among 
Swiss Anabaptists, 136 ; at Augsburg, 
158 ; at Rhynsburg, 190 ; re-intro- 
duced into England, 207 ; advocated by 
Leonard Busher, 208 ; controversies 
about, 209; among Continental Ana- 
baptists, 210 ; first defined, 211 ; of 
General Harrison, 229; trine, 390, 

3Q2- 
Independence of churches, 31. 
Indulgences,. Samson's sale of, 132. 
Interdict, effect of, 83. 
Inquisition : origin of, 105 ; organization 

of, 106 ; its process, 107 ; its lesson, 

109. 
Irenseus, on bishops, 54. 
Ireland : Patrick preaches gospel in, 72, 

seq. ; not quickly Romanized, 74. 
Irvingites (Catholic Apostolic Church), 

compared to Montanists, 59. 
Italy, Baptist mission in, 408. 

Jacob, Rev. Henry, 206, 207, 213. 
Jackson, Andrew, his victory at New 

Orleans, 324. 
James, Rev. John, unjust execution of, 

230. 
James I., persecutes Separatists, 202. 
James II.: his "dispensations," 234; 

his persecution of Knollys, 217. 
Jefferson, Thomas: advocates religious 

liberty, 319 ; makes Louisiana pur- 
chase, 324. 
Jerome, influence of, 55. 
Jerusalem : church of, scattered, 16 ; 

Council of, 31; communism at, 14; 

immersion of three thousand at, ibid. 
Jessey, Henry : English Separatist and 

Baptist, 216 ; favors open communion, 

263. 
Jeter, Rev. J. B., 343. 
Joan of Kent, Anabaptist martyr, 195. 
Jones. Dr. Samuel, 352. 
John, King of England, 99. 
John, Elector of Saxony, 163. 
Johnson, Francis, 201, 203. 
Johnson, Rev. Hezekiah, 329. 
Judaism, characteristics of, 18. 
Judson, Adoniram : becomes Baptist, 

330, 331 ; mission of, to Burma, 334 ; his 

version of the Bible, 334, 336. 



Julian (the Apostate) favors Arianism, 

68. 
Justin : his apology, 41 ; on baptism, 47. 

Keach, Rev. Elias, 304. 

Keller, Dr. Ludwig : on Old Evangelical 
party, in ; on Hatzer, 141. 

Kendrick, Rev. Ariel, 278. 

Kiffen, William : his life and works, 213, 
214, 218 ; accused. of blasphemy, 221 ; 
letter to Irish Baptists, 224; appointed 
alderman, 234 ; favors close commun- 
ion, 263 ; as preacher, 266 ; pastor in 
London, 275. 

Kincaid, Rev. Eugenio, 356. 

Kingdom of God : burden of Christ's 
teaching, 23 : relation to church, 24. 

Knapp, Rev. W. I., 407. 

Knollys, Hanserd : his life and works, 
215-218 ; advocates close communion, 
263 ; residence of, in America, 287. 

Kobner, Julius, 398. 

Lapsi, question of their treatment, 63. 

Laying on of hands, 29. 

Lathrop, John, 206, 207, 213. 

Latimer, bishop, against Anabaptists, 193. 

Lehmann, Rev. G. W., 398. 

Lichtenstein : lords of, become Anabap- 
tists, 154 ; surrender Hiibmaier, 156. 

Lincoln, John Smyth at, 202. 

Locke, John, on toleration, 235. 

Lollards, 90. 

Long Parliament, 219. 

Loomis, Rev. Ebenezer, 323. 

Lord's Supper : in New* Testament, 28 ; 
when celebrated, 34. 

Lord's Day : observed from apostolic 
times, 33 ; not confounded with Sab- 
bath, 34. 

Louisiana purchase, 324. 

Louis Philippe, sanctions persecution, 
394- 

Lower Canada, Baptists in, 278. 

Ludlow, General, on Harrison's death, 
229. 

Lush, Sir Robert, 261. 

Luther : his doctrine of the eucharist, 
52 ; compared to Savonarola, 86, 87 ; 
inconsistency of, 102 ; as a scholar, 
150 ; his brave words at Worms, 161 ; 
against Anabaptists, 162 : advice of, 
to Elector, 163 ; his tract on the peas- 
ants, 169 ; opposed by Miinzer, 170 ; 
his second tract on peasants, 173. 

Lyons and Waldenses, 119. 

McAll mission, 395. 

McCoy, Rev. Isaac : preaches first ser- 
mon in Chicago, 321 ; missionary to 
Indians, 325. 

McLaren, Alexander, 261. 

McLean, Archibald, 262, 263. 

McMaster, William, founds a university, 
284. 

McMaster, Mrs. (Moulton), 277, 284. 

Madison University, 356. 

Magistracy, English Baptists on, 211 
(see Sword). 



428 



INDEX 



Mani and his teachings, 75. 

Manichaean sects, 55, 60, 75, 102. 

Manning, James : pastor of Providence 
Church, 293 ; college president, 310, 
314 ; pupil at Hopewell Academy, 352 ; 
life and labors of, 353. 

Mantz, Felix : Swiss Anabaptist, 135 ; 
imprisoned at Zurich, 137; drowned, 
139 : letter to Miinzer, 171. 

Maoris, mission to, 285. 

Marshall, Rev. Daniel, 318. 

Mary, Virgin, exaltation of, 55. 

Mason, Rev. Nathan, 277. 

Mass (see Transubstantiation). 

Massachusetts : General court of, con- 
demns Baptists, 296 ; Baptists in the 
colony of, ibid.; Baptists' rapid growth 
in, after Great Awakening, 309 ; char- 
ter of 1691, 301 ; religious liberty in, 320. 

Matthys, Jan: disciple and successor of 
Hofmann, 171 ; goes to Miinster, 178 ; 
his death, 179. 

Maximilla, Montanist prophetess, 57, 59. 

Melanchthon : reception of the Zwickau 
prophets by, 148 ; as a scholar, 150 ; on 
persecution, 181. 

Menno Simons : his early life, 184 ; con- 
version of, 185 ; repudiates Miinster- 
ites, 186 ; extensive labors of, 187. 

Mennonites : the so-called, in Lancaster 
County, 143 ; origin of, 184 ; tolerated 
in Holland, 189 ; practise affusion, 190 ; 
dissensions among, 191 ; severity of 
their discipline, 192 ; go to England, 
193, seq. ; Doctor Some on, 196 ; rela- 
tions of, with John Smyth, 204; with 
General Baptists, 209 ; in the United 
States, 392 ; in Russia, 406. 

Methodists : origin of name, 243 ; growth 
of, 244. 

Miller, William, and his teachings, 393. 

Milton, rebukes Presbyterians, 220. 

Missions, first Christian, 202. 

Missionary Societies (Foreign) : Baptist 
Union, 256 ; Canadian Baptist, 282 ; 
Conference of Swedish churches, 404 ; 
Danish Baptist Union, 399 ; English 
Missionary, 252 ; English Home Mis- 
sion, 256 ; German Baptist Union, 309 ; 
Grande Ligne, 283 ; Irish Home Mis- 
sion, ibid. ; Maritime Provinces, 282. 

Missionary Societies (American) : Gen- 
eral Convention, 325, 332; Home Mis- 
sion, 327, 329, 330, 347, 375 ; Mission- 
ary Union, 349, 374, 377 ; Massachu- 
setts, 312; Southern Baptist Conven- 
tion, 347 ; Women's, 375. 

Mitchell, Rev. Edward C., 396. 

Mixed membership of Baptist churches, 
264. 

Moenster, Rev. P. C.,405. 

Monachism, origin of, 55. 

Montanus and his teachings, 57, 58. 

Montanists : origin of, 57 ; doctrines of, 
58-60 ; their idea of prophecy, 59 ; 
chiliasm among, 60; condemned by 
bishop of Rome, 61 : decline, 62 ; prac- 
tise immersion, ibid. 

Moravians, origin of, 93, seq. 



Morgan, English priest, execution of, 
220. 

Morgan, William, mysterious disappear- 
ance of, 341. 

Moulton, Ebenezer, 276. 

Miihlhausen, disorders at, 171, 172, 396. 

Miinster : beginning of reforms at, 178 ; 
disorders in and capture of, 179 ; Cor- 
nelius on, 180 ; Ulhorn on, ibid. ; 
doings of, repudiated by Menno, 186 ; 
still a byword, 396. 

Miinzer, Thomas : in Zwickau, 148 ; 
early labors of, 170 ; expelled from 
Zwickau, 171 ; opposes infant baptism, 
ibid. ; defeat and death of, 172 ; not an 
Anabaptist, 174. 

Myles, John : founds church in Wales, 
269 ; emigrates to America, 298. 

Mysticism: Denck's, 159; taught by 
Zwickau prophets, 148. 

Netherlands : revolt of, 189 ; toleration 

in, ibid. 
New Hampshire, first Baptists in, 313. 
New Jersey, first Baptist churches of, 

304- 
"New Lights," 309, 318. 
New Orleans, battle of, 324. 
Newton Theological Institution, 354. 
New York, early Baptists of, 303, seq. 
New Zealand, Baptists in, 285. 
Nilsson, F. O., 400, 401. 
Nitzschmann, David, 94. 
Non-resistance, 144, 160. 
North Carolina, first Baptists in, 307. 
Norway, Baptists of, 403. 
Novatian, his clinic baptism, 48, 63. 
Novatians, origin and history of, 63, 

seq. 
Nova Scotia, Baptists in, 276, 277, seq. 
Nuremberg, Denck at, 157. 

OZcolampadius : at Angrogne, 126 ; friend 
of Hiibmaier, 152 ; defends infant bap- 
tism, 153; teacher of Denck, 157; 
visited by Miinzer, 171. 

"Old Lights," 387. 

Olney, Thomas, successor of Roger 
Williams, 292, 293. 

Oncken, J. G. : colporter, 361 ; his life 
and works, 397 ; baptizes Nilsson, 400 ; 
baptizes Danish converts, 405. 

Ongole, notable baptisms at, 14. 

Ontario and Quebec, Baptists in, 281, 
seq. 

"Open" communion: in England, 212 ; 
controversies about, 262 ; in Wales, 
272 ; in Nova Scotia, 278. 

Ordinances, how many, 29. 

Origen, reply of, to Celsus, 41. 

Original Freewill Baptists, 385. 

Osiander, work at Nuremberg, 157. 

Oscar I., King of Sweden, favors relig- 
ious liberty, 403. 

Oxford Church, 205. 

Painter, Thomas, opposes infant bap- 
tism, 296. 
Particular Baptists : origin of, 205 ; first 



INDEX 



429 



Confession of, 211 ; Hyper-Calvinism 
among, 240; change in theology of, 
248 ; prevail in United States, 306. 

Pastors' College, 260, 267. 

Patrick, apostle to Ireland, 72, seq. 

Paul, Apostle : conversion of, 17 ; broad- 
ened ideas of, 19 ; missionary labors 
of, 21. 

Paulicians, 75. 

Peck, Rev. John M., life and labors of, 
325» seq. 

Pearson, Rev. Nicholas, 277, 278. 

Peasants : condition in Germany, 167 ; 
twelve articles of, 169 ; defeat of, at 
Frankenhausen, 172 ; Luther's tracts 
against, 169, 173. 

Pennsylvania : first Baptists of, 304. 

Pepys' account of Harrison's death, 229. 

Pentecost, and the gift of the Spirit, 14. 

Person of Christ, controversies about, 
67, seq. 

Perpetua, martyrdom of, 38. 

Persecution : the first, 16 ; the Neronian, 
35; Tertullian on, 37; the Diocletian, 
63 ; result of uniting Church and State, 
95 ; Fathers on, 97 ; fundamental prin- 
ciple of, 97, 98 ; of Albigenses, 104 ; by 
the Inquisition, 105, seq.; of Waldenses, 
127 ; opposed by Anabaptists, 161 ; of 
Anabaptists in Switzerland, 137, seq. ; 
of German Anabaptists, 161, seq. ; 
Cornelius on, 165 ; causes fanaticism, 
167 ; Philip of Hesse on, 181 ; in the 
Netherlands, 188; by Henry VIII. , 
193 : under Edward VI., 194 ; by Eliza- 
beth, 195 ; by Presbyterians, 220, 221 ; 
under Charles II., 231 ; of French Bap- 
tists, 395 ; of German Baptists, 398 ; of 
Baptists in Sweden, 402, seq. ; of Dan- 
ish Baptists, 405 ; of Baptists in Russia, 
406. 

Peter, Apostle : his confession, 5 ; his re- 
buke of Ananias, 15 ; preaches to Cor- 
nelius, 17, 18 ; never bishop of Rome, 
22 ; Rome's audacious theft of, 72. 

Peter of Bruys and his work, in. 

Peter the Venerable, his treatise against 
the Petrobrusians, 111-115. 

Peter Waldo, history of, 119-122. 

Petrobrusians, their alleged errors, 112- 

Philadelphia Association : origin of, 
306 ; adopts Confession, 238, 306 ; early 
strength of, 317; leader in organiza- 
tion, 332 ; founds college in Rhode Is- 
land, 353 ; founds Columbian Univer- 
sity, 356. 

Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, 181. 

Philip, deacon and apostle, 17. 

Phillimore on Stuart period, 242. 

" Pilgrim's Progress," 233. 

Piscataway: (N. H.), Hanserd Knollys 
at, 216; (N. J.), church formed at, 
3°4- 

Pliny, letter to Trajan, 23, 35. 

Popes : Adrian IV., 83 ; Alexander III., 
121, 122; Alexander VI., 85, 86, 87; 
Gregory VII., 80; Innocent II., 82: 
Innocent III., 99, 103, 109; John 



XXIII., 92 ; Leo the Great, 98 ; Lucian 

III., 127; Martin V., 92. 
Poland, Anabaptists of, 182. 
Powell, Vavasor, life and work of, 270, 

seq. 
Prag, scene of Hus's labors, 89. 
Presbyterians, oppose toleration, 219, 

221. 
Priesthood (see Sacerdotalism). 
Primitive Baptists, 388. 
Prince Edward's Island, Baptists in, 

280. 
Priscilla, Montanist prophetess, 58, 59. 
Priscillian, persecution of, 97. 
Prophecy, among Montanists, 59. 
Purgatory: rejected by Petrobrusians, 

114 ; by Waldenses, 124. 

Randall, Rev. Benjamin, 385. 
Ratisbon (Regensburg), Hiibmaier at, 

i5Q» 154- 
Raymond of Toulouse, 104. 
Read, Rev. H. W., 329. 
Reformation : preceded by evangelical 
movements, no; coincides with social 
revolution, 169 ; the true, i8r> ; an 
alleged, 342. 
Regeneration : taught to Nicodemus, 24, 
25; should precede baptism, 25; an 
unwelcome truth, 44 ; in baptism, 46 ; 
condition of church-membership, 411. 
Religious liberty : advocated by Dona- 
tists, 65; Luther on, 162 ; advocated by 
Terwoort, 196 ; in Confession of 1644, 
212 ; established in Rhode Island, 290 ; 
in Virginia, 319 ; triumph of the princi- 
ple of, 416, seq. 
Restoration (of the Stuarts), 226, 241. 
Retribution, doctrine of, 420. 
Reublin, William, baptizes Hiibmaier, 

152. 
Revelation of John, 22. 
Revivals, decline of, 351, 381. 
Revolution : effect on Baptist churches, 

313 ; Morgan Edwards in, 315. 
Rhees, Rush, 357. 

Rhode Island : colony founded, 290 ; es- 
tablishes religious liberty, ibid. ; ob- 
tains charter, 295 ; Six-principle Bap- 
tists in, 302. 
Rhode Island College : founded, 310 ; 

Edwards promotes, 315; plan for, 353. 
Rhodes, William, 304. 
Riemann, Henry, Anabaptist, drowned 

at Zurich, 139. 
Rice, Luther : becomes Baptist, 331 ; 
returns to America, ibid. ; tour of 
churches, 332 ; connection with Colum- 
bian University, 356. 
River Brethren, 392. 
Robinson, John, 202, 203. 
Robinson, Dr. E. G., 357. 
Rockefeller, John D., and his gifts to 

education, 358, 371. 
Romanism : beginnings of, 54 ; rejected 

by Waldenses, 124. 
Rostan, Rev. J. C, 394. 
Rothmann, Bernard, Lutheran preacher 
at Munster, 178. 



430 



INDEX 



Russia : Baptists in, 406 ; laws on religion, 

ibid. 
Ryland, Dr. John : baptizes Carey, 250; 

his Hyper-Calvinism, 251. 
Ryle, Bishop, on Church of England, 

243. 

Sacerdotalism, origin of, 46, 52, seq. 

Sacramentalism : origin of, 46, 52, seq. ; 
in Britain, 74 ; denied, 102. 

Saillens, Rev. Reuben, 396. 

St. Gall, Denck at, 158. 

Sakellarios, Rev. D. Z., 407. 

Samaria, Philip preaches in, 17. 

Samson, his sale of indulgences, 132. 

Sandemanians or Glasites, 272, 273. 

Saratoga Convention, 340. 

Savonarola : evangelic teaching by, 9 ; 
birth and education of, 86 ; his great 
work at Florence, 87 : overthrow of, 
88 ; varying estimates of, 89. 

Sattler, Michael, 144. 

Sears, Rev. Barnas, 397. 

Seminaries, theological : Hamilton, 356 ; 
Hamburg, 400 ; Rochester, 357 ; Stock- 
holm, 404 ; other, 356 ; growth of, 369, 
seq. 

Separatists : English, 201, 202, 206, 210, 
216 ; relation of, to early Baptists, 262. 

" Separates," 309, 318. 

Separate Baptists, 387. 

Servetus, burning of, 139. 

Seventh-day Baptists, 230, 267, 390. 

Schaffhausen, 144, 150, 151. 

Schleitheim, confession of Baptists at, 

144. 

Schroeder, G. W., 400, 401, 402. 

Scott, Walter, introduces baptism "for 
remission of sins," 343. 

Scotland, Baptists in, 272, seq. 

Screven, Rev. William, 301. 

Scriptures, only rule of faith and practice, 
102, 123, 134. 

Scrooby and the Separatists, 202, 203. 

Sinclair, Sir William, becomes Baptist, 
272. 

Six-principle Baptists : in England, 267 ; 
in Providence, 293, 305 ; in Newport, 
295; in Rhode Island, 302; present 
condition of, 384. 

Smith, Sydney, critic of missions, 254. 

Smith, Rev. Hezekiah : life and labors 
of, 310-312 ; pupil at Hopewell, 352. 

Smyth, John : his church, 4 ; his early 
life, 201 ; becomes Separatist, 202 ; bap- 
tizes himself, 203 ; death of, 204. 

Societies : American Bible, 336 ; Ameri- 
can Bible Union, 337; American and 
Foreign Bible, ibid. ; Baptist Young 
People's Union, 360. (See also Mis- 
sionary Societies.) 

Societies, problem of their relation to the 
churches, 382. 

Social Brethren, 393. 

Social revolution : in Germany, 168 ; re- 
lation to it of Anab«->- ts, 174. 

Some, Doctor, his " G' v catise," 196. 

Summers, Dr. Charles 

Southern Baptist Conven its organ- 



ization, 347 ; its work, 348, 376 ; mission 
of, in Italy, 408. 

South Carolina, first Baptists in, 306. 

Spain, Baptist mission in, 407. 

Speyer, Diet of, 164. 

Spilsbury, John : Baptist preacher, 206 ; 
favors close communion, 263. 

Spurgeon, Charles H. : his life and work, 
259, seq. ; on the communion question, 
265 ; " never changed an opinion," 418. 

Stanley, Dean, on baptism, 413. 

State Conventions, aim and work of, 351. 

Staughton, Dr. Wm., 356. 

Stearns, Rev. Shubael, 318. 

Stephen, stoning cf, 16. 

Stockwell Orphanage, 260. 

Strassburg : Hofmannat, 176 ; Mennonite 
synod at, 191. 

Strong, Rev. Augustus H., 357. 

Stiibner, Marcus, 148. 

Stundists, of Russia, 406. 

Stuyvesant, Peter, governor of New 
York, 302, 303. 

Succession : Roman theory of, 5 ; Bap- 
tist theory of, 69, seq. ; the true apos- 
tolic, 7. 

Sunday-schools, growth of, 359. 

Swansea Baptist Church : in Wales, 269; 
in Massachusetts, 299. 

Sweden, Baptists in, 400, seq. 

Swedenborg, 148. 

Switzerland, condition of, in sixteenth 
century, 131. 

Sword : Anabaptist doctrine of, 144, 160 ; 
not advocated by Hofmann, 175 ; Hub- 
maier and Denck on, 176. 

Taggart, " Father," 323. 

Tasmania, Baptists in, 286. 

Taylor, Dan, life and labors, 245. 

Taylor, Dr. G. B., 408. 

" Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," 47, 
50. 

lertullian : on persecution, 37; on Per- 
petua and Felicitas, 38 ; on number of 
Christians, 39 ; his apology, 41 ; on 
baptism, 47 ; on bishops, 62. 

Terwoort, Hendrik, Anabaptist martyr, 
195, 196. 

Test Act, 231. 

Thieffrey, Rev. Joseph, 394. 

Thoma, Marcus, 148. 

Thomas, Joshua, on Baptists in Wales, 
269. 

Thurloe: his "State Papers" quoted, 
225; on Vavasor Powell, 270. 

Tippecanoe, battle of, 324. 

Toleration : Constantine's edict of, 39; 
opposed in Holland, 189; rejected by 
Presbyterians, 219, seq. ; favored by 
Cromwell, 221 ; promised by Charles 
II., 230; Act of, 235, 237, 245; in 
France, 395 ; granted in Hamburg, 
399 ; in Sweden, 403 ; in Denmark, 405. 

Tombes, Rev. John, favors open com- 
munion, 203. 

Toplady, encomium on Gill, 240. 

Toulouse: Albigenses at, 103; council 
at, 128. 



INDEX 



431 



Traditores, and the church, 64. 

Trajan : correspondence of, with Pliny, 

23 ; his persecution of Christians, 35. 
Transubstantiation : rejected by Petro- 

brusians, 113 ; by Waldenses, 125. 
Triennial Convention : origin of, 332 ; its 

home missions, 325; abandons Peck, 

326 ; divided, 347. 
Trine immersion, 390, 392. 
Tunkers (see Dunkards). 
Two-seed-in-Spirit Baptists, 389. 

Ulhorn, on Miinster uproar, 180. 

Unitas Fratrum (see Moravians). 

United Baptists, 387. 

Unitarian defection, 411. 

Universities: Basel, 131, 157; Brown, 
354> 372 (see Rhode Island College) ; 
Cambridge, 201, 215 ; Chicago, 368, 371, 
372 ; Columbian, 356 ; Freiburg, 149 ; 
Ingolstadt, 150; McMaster, 284 ; Mad- 
ison (Colgate), 357; Rochester, 357. 

Upper Canada, Baptists in, 279. 

Vadian : on origin of Anabaptists, 129 ; 

on Denck, 159. 
Van Meter, Rev. W. C, 408. 
Vane, Sir Henry, 293. 
Vaughn, Rev. William, 295. 
Venner, Thomas, 226. 
Vermont, first Baptists in, 313. 
Virginia, Baptist beginnings in, 307. 
Voller, Rev. James, 285. 

Wade, Rev. Jonathan, 356. 

Wales, Baptists in, 269 seq. 

Waldenses : origin of, 119, seq. ; teach- 
ings of, 123, seq. ; affiliations of, 126, 
seq. ; relations of, to Anabaptists, 128. 

Ward, Rev. William, baptized the Jud- 
sons, 331. 

Wedmore Church, 205. 

Wellington, Duke of, on the minister's 
" marching orders," 252. 

Wesley, John, life and labors of, 243-245. 

Wesleyan revival, effect on Baptist 
growth, 256. 

Wheeler, Rev. O. C, 329. 

Whitefield, George, evangelist, 243, 309. 



Wiberg, Rev. Andreas, 361, 401. 

Wiclif, John, his teachings, 90. 

Wickendon, William : "elder" at Prov- 
idence, 292, 293 ; preaches in New 
York, 303. 

Widemann, Jacob, 155. 

Wightman, Edward, Anabaptist martyr, 
197. 

Wightman, Rev. Valentine, 304. 

William of Orange, his tolerance, 189. 

William III. and toleration, 235. 

Williams, Roger : and John Smyth, 203 ; 
early life of, 288 ; his banishment from 
Massachusetts, 289; founds Provi- 
dence, 290 ; baptism of, 291 ; com- 
pared to Doctor Clarke, 294 ; his 
" Bloody Tenet," 295 ; small effect of, 
on Baptists, 304. 

Willmarth, Rev. Isaac, 394. 

Wilson, Rev. B. G., 285. 

Winnebrenner, Rev. John, and his fol- 
lowers, 391. 

Wittenberg, Zwickau prophets at, 148. 

Wolfe, General, victory of, at Quebec, 

327- 
Woman's Missionary Societies, 375. 
Worship in early churches, 32, 33. 

Yates and Pearce, their Bengali version, 

258. 
Young people's work, 359, seq. 

Zinzendorf, Count, 94. 

Zurich : government of, 131 ; first dis- 
putation at, 132 ; council sustains re- 
form, 133 ; second disputation at, 135, 
151 ; third disputation at, 136 ; council 
condemns Anabaptism, 137 ; decrees 
drowning, 138 ; suppresses Anabap- 
tists, 141. 

Zwickau : prophets of, 148, 171 ; Miinzer 
at, 170. 

Zwingli, Ulric : his early life, 131 ; 
preaches pure gospel, 132 ; avows radi- 
cal principals, 133 ; becomes conserva- 
tive, 134 ; breaks with radicals, 135 ; 
argues for baptism of children, 136 ; re- 
sponsible for persecutions, 139 ; friend 
of Hiibmaier, 151. 



est* 






Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1606G 
(724)779-2111 



